Vexercise 2 Check In & Origins

[lola]

Hello Vexercisers! Somehow, it's the weekend already! How is Vexercise 2 treating you? Are you finding it easier or harder than Vexercise 1? What types of issues are cropping up? 

People seemed to like when I shared the origins for Vexercise 1, so I'll try to keep that going. In this case, this Vexercise was in part inspired by this post by Lim in the Videlicet Vidding Zine. I feel like motion and graphic matching are such a wonderful tools in vidding, but maybe ones we don't talk about explicitly all that often, at least as often as we do scene choice, lyrical interpretation, etc. 

Does approaching this Vexercise looking for opportunities for graphic and motion matching make you see the source in a different way? Does it maybe give new insights about repeating imagery or camera movements in your source? I find that's totally happening to me! 

Comments

[naye]

So, uh. There's a slight possibility I got to one minute and found that it was way too short, and that this has lead to...more vidding. Despite the whole newbie thing. I blame bonibaru and you should too!

I am loving the graphic/motion matching! My main challenge was to break out of a matching loop, because in my source I have a lot of footage of longing looks and once I started stringing them together I could easily have done and entire exercise of just that. So figuring out how to either pick up on something else in the shot or straight up interrupt it and start another sequence of matching was something I worked on quite a bit. And I think I've figured out ways of dealing with it in this vid that I'm happy with, but I can see how it could become a recurring challenge using this type of tool.

Another challenge is that I'm trying to do multiple types of matching at once - not just the motion, but also the lyrics and the beat and the story arc of the vid overall. So that both helps in that it limits what clips I can use, and also - well. Hinders, because it limits what clips I can use!

[lola]

Eeeeeh I am so excited that this has led to still more vidding!! And yes, while a video that just consists of eyef**ing could technically be all graphic matches and match on action, LOL, I suppose it's good to mix it up a bit :D I love the idea of just following a thread left by a previous shot, so it's like a sort of path of matches... that's really cool!

And yes, once you throw in all those other limits... it's limits galore, which can be really generative and help a timeline actually get filled!

[naye]

I will say that I feel these exercises are going to be really formative in what I do with vids in the future - I'm never not going to be looking for those graphic and action matches now. It's so very satisfying to find the right one to follow - really does feel like a following a thread in a labyrinth.

[bonibaru]

Another challenge is that I'm trying to do multiple types of matching at once - not just the motion, but also the lyrics and the beat and the story arc of the vid overall.

This is one of the biggest challenges, juggling everything and trying to make judgment calls down to the microsecond sometimes. Which is why I like the focused structure of these exercises. Like trying to learn an entire piano concerto, but movement by movement, so that by the end all the pieces come together into a beautiful whole.

[naye]

Which is why I like the focused structure of these exercises. Like trying to learn an entire piano concerto, but movement by movement, so that by the end all the pieces come together into a beautiful whole.
It is so useful! As a complete beginner learning these fundamental skills by (technically) concentrating on one at a time is so very helpful! And then yeah, like you said - I can incorporate more and more of them into a whole.