Vexercise 2 Drops! Visual Continuity &/or Lightbuilding

[lola]

Hi everyone!! We are on to Vexercise 2! So for this round, there are two options:

Vex 2: The OG Version:

Visual Continuity: Produce a 1 minute video edit on your selected source using match-on-action and graphic matches as your primary editing logics. The motion of each shot should seem to continue into motion in the following shot. Audio should be music of your own choosing.

Here's a really helpful video on different types of match cuts (bonus with lots of helpful Sherlock examples!) This video is about match cuts in cinema and TV, but I think it's really cool how we can adapt these techniques to vidding/fan video editing.

Some vids that use visual continuity, match on action, and graphic matching (feel free to rec others in the comments!)

Yuris in Love(starting at about 1.41)
Motionography 2012
Multifandom Mashup 2019 (for All the Graphic Matches)

Vex 2: Follow the light. (aka Lightbuilding)

Lim talks about this in Demystifying Vidding. Produce a 1 minute vid where your guiding logic is lightbuilding. Try letting the flow and build of light guide your editing choices throughout. (You can still incorporate match-on-action as well, so this sort of builds on the OG version)

 

Wunderland (Ghibli, by Traf)
Flow (Elementary, (Bones), House, The Mentalist, Person of Interest, Sherlock, The X-Files 1, by Lim)

【水龙吟】Epic Fighting Scene Mix Cut of Word of Honor (Word of Honor, by AvenueX)

Please suggest more examples for either version, or ask any questions in the comment, and have fun! It's been amazing seeing all the Vex 1s come in, can't wait to see what folks create for this one!

ETA Thanks to nu_breed  for these additional excellent examples!

Graphic/motion matching:
Nothing is Safe by Thuvia Ptarth (Watchmen)
Starships by Bironic (Multifandom)
Juice by Sisabet (Disney villainesses) - the opening is a perfect example
Move Your Body by ohvienna (Xena)

Light Building and graphic/motion matching:
Monsters of the Cosmos - by Cherry (MCU)
Expo by Lim (MCU) - there's a snippet linked in their post but the entire vid is perfection tbh
Overcome by Sweetestdrain (SW:Rogue One)
Happy Now by pollyrepeat and jonesandashes (SW:Clone Wars)

Comments

Re: Sanctuary (TV)

[actiaslunaris]

Ooo, bouncy song! Their connection definitely comes through, and I liked the attention to the way many clips have light shining on their faces.

[allheadybooks]

VERY satisfying to watch! I feel like I don’t have a very developed vocabulary for talking about vids—my brain just goes ‘fast fun wow’—but something about the last 20 seconds or so, when the body movements speed up and get more dramatic, is working really well IMO.

[avawatson]

Thank you! <333 I stared at this for like 36 hours straight, so I definitely feel like I lost all perspective. XD

[lola]

ahhhh I loved this! I love the color work in this and the light building (and by build, I mean, wow, was there build... what on earth is going on in this show lol? :D)

[lola]

Ummm... I have a lot of feelings about this. Was the proper response for me to be yelling Anthy!!! And then Utena!! And then sort of want to tragically laugh and cry at the same time?

More coherently, I really loved the use of graphic matches--I feel like RGU plays with that itself and so it felt so appropriate here.

Re: So many examples

[lola]

Thank you so much for all these examples! Would you be okay with my putting them in the post itself?

Re: So many examples

[nu_breed]

Of course!

[nu_breed]

A;LSDJKFHLKSDFJS; I LOVE IT

[actiaslunaris]

Thank you so much! That makes me happy to hear. I definitely did motion matching on that section on purpose, because it makes my brain satisfied to do that. :)

[avawatson]

This comment made my night, thank you!

[seasaltmemories_14]

Mwahaha that tends to be my general reaction to thinking about those two in general, so that's the perfect response!

And totally, some of these matches/parallels I was pretty familiar with, but noticing that Utena and Anthy both arched their back the same way when getting stabbed is that sorta lightbulb moment that made me know I had to go with this combo

[lola]

Wow this was so visually engaging--the color and light graphic matching just pulled me right along, I was transfixed!!

Re: Sanctuary (TV)

[lola]

I don't know the source at all, but this was totally engaging all the same. I love the play with light and shadow, and the light building throughout!

[thatyourefuse]

Thank you! The second I actually read the exercise description I knew EXACTLY what I was doing -- such a cool thing to focus on!

what on earth is going on in this show lol? :D

Uh... stuff? I think I have to just go with "stuff?" (AFAIK it's the first MCU offering to really drop the mask of science-fantasy and change gears into magic -- actually, I would argue very strongly that it's a straight occult horror, but only one character actually knows that for most of the runtime. I've been a bit let down before by the MCU doing a genre I love in TV format and fueled hugely by antagonistic f/f vibes, but I mean also... damn.)

[thatyourefuse]

Thank you! (I'm so gone on these witches, oh man.)

[naye]

This was fascinating. I went for an attempt at lightbuilding, and I don't think I've tried anything before that's helped me snap out of the linear/chronological kind of vidding I keep feeling compelled to do. While this isn't completely out of order, it's - more so than I usually feel comfortable with, which feels really cool!

Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity - Long-Serving on AO3.

[actiaslunaris]

Thank you! I'm so happy you think so.

[nu_breed]

I had a really tough time with this one! My first attempt I tried the Lightbuilding/visual continuity and I completed it but it was super boring and meh so I changed it up and started again from scratch using different episodes (sorry Lola and Boni for rulebreaking!)

Much happier with this one!

The Untamed: A Dark Machine on AO3.

[lola]

oh gosh, this was gorgeous!! I love how you interwove the light building and the match on action. And this source looks *so* pretty!!!

[lola]

I absolutely adored this. It felt like poetry. And so moody and immersive too. I felt pulled through by the motion matching and like I was physically *inside* this vid, moving with it. So cool!

[nu_breed]

Oh wow, thank you so much! Like I mentioned this was my second attempt and the first one was... okay? Like nothing special. I am so thrilled this clicked with you!

I am thinking it might be one to work into a full vid - the whole track is amazing and there is an even bigger peak (that I couldn’t fit into the one minute limit) in the instrumental where there’s a key change and the bass hits even harder and it’s just... *chef’s kiss*.

[naye]

Well that was AMAZING! Such a good match with the song, and the hand sequence in particular was so, so satisfying.

[naye]

Thank you so much Lola! ♥ I am definitely doing this partly to pimp out the source, which is well worth a watch if you're into East Asian fusion fantasy with gorgeous swirly robes and some serious shippy vibes. :D

[seasaltmemories_14]

I more or less made this vid just to make that hand sequence and probably spent the most time trying to get it right lol, so glad the effort paid off ^^

[airawyn]

Three Duels (Motion), The Untamed, WangXian. I may attempt a lightbuilding exercise as well.

I read somewhere that LWJ and WWX's fight in the courtyard in the Unclean Realm was the same fight as their first one in Cloud Recesses, so I figured that'd be fun to use for this exercise! It turns out that it is not exactly the same choreography, but the fights in Cloud Recesses, Unclean Realm are shot so similarly that it's easy to swap things in and out, and some shots are nearly identical. That gave me a lot of freedom to move things around.

I also realized while doing this that Wei Wuxian does not fight back until their battle in Nightless City, and he never once fights with a blade. Even though we think of their fight under the moonlight as a sword fight, it's really sword vs. scabbard.