Thoughts on "Invisible"

[valarltd]

I am receiving confirmation that I don't think like most vidders. I liked this vid, and got the point. It's not great. It's certainly not "Dirty World" "Affirmation" or "Come What May." But it isn't bad.

What I see are sidekicks that are (romantically) invisible to their heroes.
Jim and Blair, Han & Luke, Holmes& Watson, and especially Michael & Brian.

I hate the song. It's manufactured pop at its worst. (Says the woman who vidded "100 Years") But this song makes me hate it a little less.

The changes of fandoms does not feel organic. It comes in odd places, not at the end of a verse or chorus, but in mid-verse.

As much as I love my boys in a slashy context, I don't think Star Wars fit this vid as well as some. The Brian/Michael bit was inspired, and the QL bits were good. Even X-Files worked. But neither SW nor Highlander worked very well for me.

But I do get it.

Comments

[destina.livejournal.com]

What I see are sidekicks that are (romantically) invisible to their heroes. Jim and Blair, Han & Luke, Holmes& Watson, and especially Michael & Brian.
(snip)
But I do get it.

The context of the song doesn't fit the relationship of the heroes/sidekicks in the chosen fandoms, since it's arguable that Michael is romantically invisible to Brian -- rather, there's a boundary there Brian isn't willing to cross -- and so forth. I don't think it was too hard to see what she was driving at, but overall she didn't make her point, because she didn't put the vid together well. IMO, YMMV, and all that.

[jkb.livejournal.com]

You think the song 100 Years is just manufactured pop at its worst? I think it's excellent. :)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I really don't like it. I don't like most pop, and Five for Fighting leaves me very cold.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Well, it may be very true that you don't think like most vidders, or at least like the vidders who didn't care for Invisible. *g* But I don't think that the reason most of them didn't care for it was that they didn't "get it." It's plain that the point is that the "sidekicks" or secondary characters are supposedly "invisible" to the primary characters, but I think many of us felt the concept was poorly executed. Apart from the QaF bits (and I distinctly remember thinking that it might have been a much better vid if she'd stuck with Stuart/Vince, where Stuart canonically doesn't notice Vince's affection for him), most of those pairings don't involve one guy ignoring the other. Jim doesn't ignore Blair, Duncan doesn't ignore Methos, etc. Now, if she was trying to construct a reality wherein this was a plausible interpretation, I think there could have been better clip choices, ones that had one guy looking impatient or dismissive, while the other guy looked lost, or pained, or something. For instance, in the Sherlock Holmes bit, the lyric is going on about Watson being invisible to Holmes at the very point Holmes is stroking Watson's hair out of his face.

And as you indicate, the sudden shift in the middle of a lyric line, particularly between two such dramatically different shows as TS and SW, was odd, and it came so early in the song that it caused the viewers to lose faith in the vid very early. Really, what I heard regarding this vid sounds a lot like the very things you say -- they just word it more strongly, and the things that distracted them weren't overcome by the things that let you enjoy the vid.

Having said that, you're not alone in liking vids that didn't appeal to a lot of other vidders (and non-vidders!) I quite liked a couple of vids this weekend that many others didn't get, or didn't enjoy. As with fanfiction, not a small part of whether you enjoy a vid is up to your own personal tastes.