Obsessive24

Fan
Name:	Obsessive24
Alias(es):	Nicky
Type:	vidder
Fandoms:	BTVS, BSG, Britney Spears, Carnivale, Doctor Who, Firefly, Friday Night Lights, Gilmore Girls, Heroes, Hikaru no Go, House, M.D., Lois & Clark, Misfits, Merlin, The O.C., QAF-US,QAF-UK, Smallville, Skins, SPN, Torchwood, True Blood, Tru Calling, Twilight, Ugly Betty, Young Americans and others!
Communities:	The Fourth Wall
Other:
URL:	on LJ, obsessive24.net
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Obsessive24 is a prolific and remarkable vidder from New Zealand. She has made vids in a truly astoundingly broad array of fandoms. She also co-judges The Fourth Wall, an annual vidding contest.

She was the subject of a Vidder Profile in January, 2010. The profile was directed by bradcpu: see Vidder Profile Spotlight: obsessive24.

She is the creator of the vidding forum Vid Pub.

In May 2010 she also participated in such heights Merlin Vidding Workshop. Her answers and comments can be seen below

Interviews

• Vidder Profile Spotlight: obsessive24 (2010)
• Ask the Vidder: obsessive24 (2011)

Notable Works:

• And – Kiss Me (Angel, October 2005)
• Fade Out (Firefly, November 2005)
• Brothers on a Hotel Bed (QAF-UK, May 2006)
• For the Restless (Firefly, October 2006)
• Change (in the house of flies) (SV, December 2006)
• Jesus for the Jugular (Carnivàle, June 2007)
• Piece of Me (RPF: Britney Spears, February 2008)
• New Slang (Friday Night Lights, April 2008)
• Climbing Up The Walls (SPN/Firefly/Heroes, June 2008)
• Cuckoo (Angel, October 2008)
• Red (Merlin, December 2008)
• Fall of Man (SPN, May 2009)
• Va Va Voom, Merlin (April 2013)

Vid Compilations

• Obsessive24 2006
• Obsessive24 2007
• Obsessive24 2008
• Obsessive24 2009

Merlin Vidding Workshop: Meet The Vidder

On May 19, 2010, Obsessive24 participated in such heights meet the Merlin vidder workshop. Excerpts are included below, the entire interview can be read here.

Intro: My name is obsessive24 (Nicky) and I made my first vid in 2003. I consider "vidding" to be my fandom, and try to stick my finger in as many pies as I can, source-wise. :)

I've made two Merlin vids, Red (Arthur character, Arthur/Merlin) and Effigy (Gwen character). I felt that I've expressed what I love most about Merlin through these two vids: how the show ties into a much larger mythology, and our emotional reactions based on knowing how the story will end.

Of course, I adore Merlin's crackiness too and hope to explore that in vids later down the track. :)

Your vid Effigy..I recall you saying at one point that you felt it was something of a failed experiment. I was wondering in what sense you meant that? I'd be interested to hear a bit more about the process that went into it. It's interesting, because Effigy sort of failed for me as a personal thing, but at the same time I can see it working for a lot of viewers.

Around that time I received some concrit that my vids could come across as a bit too analytical and... too cold, I suppose. So I went into the vid really wanting to focus on emotional flow, and not worry about direction and purpose and narrative, which are usually the first things that I need to sort out in my head before I can even determine whether I want to vid something or not. As an experimental vid for myself, I really wanted to let go of my usual analytical approach and just feel the vid.

As I put clips on the timeline, it just grew more and more obvious that I wasn't letting go of a narrative. Even when I just wanted to step back and feel the thing coming together as opposed to thinking about it, I just couldn't force myself to stop thinking about where the vid was going and what it was ultimately saying.

I had wanted to vid something really postmodern, something that didn't force a view but rather just presented a state of things and left the conclusions wide open to the viewer. The way the vid actually turned out, the narrative journey and my intentions were both much more concrete than I'd wanted. So that's why it failed for me as an experiment to break out of my headspace. I don't consider it a failure of a vid per se, but in terms of what I set out to do... yeah. :)

Your vids have a lot of movement continuity in them? Do you specifically seek out clips that have the same uh, mise en scene, or does that come naturally? I used to specifically seek out movement continuity or similar blocking. Nowadays it's more of a subconscious thing - I do it, but it's very absent-minded. I think using motion and blocking is like riding a bicycle - once you learn it, you can push it to the back of your mind and just trust your subconscious to pick it up when you need to use it.

But to answer your question, it doesn't come naturally. :) I specifically remember a time around early 2006 when I was really working at using as much source motion and continuous motion as possible. That came about after I went on a huge binge of [[[heresluck]]'s vids. She was just so amazing at using source motion in a way that I'd never seen anyone use it before, especially at that time. It really opened my eyes and I very consciously tried to emulate that.

I'd love to hear a bit more about your process for beginning a vid. Is it the music that inspires you, or do you have an idea (visual or narrative) first and then try to find music that emulates that? I'd say I'm about 50/50. Sometimes I hear an awesome song and be like, "I have to vid this to something... ANYTHING", and I'll go on a big search for what'll work in terms of source. Effigy was one of those. Apart from Gwen, I was also potentially considering it for a Buffy vid. But in the end I thought the sound of it fitted Merlin's visuals better. Plus, at the time there were far fewer vids of Gwen than there were of Buffy. ;)

The other 50% of the time I would know I need to vid a show or a character or whatever, and then have to go on a big search through my music collection to find a suitable song. Red was one of those. I knew exactly what I wanted to say with the vid - Arthur on his bad destiny path, with Merlin fretfully watching - but I couldn't find an appropriate song for the longest time. Even after I found the song, I still hummed and hawed over it for quite a while because I really didn't like how the instrumentals faded out instead of ending strongly, and nearly didn't use the song because of that. In hindsight, I'm glad I got over that. :)

Save Only One Vid: One vid I'd keep of mine - Jesus for the Jugular. It was a toss-up between this and Climbing up the Walls, but J4J won because I don't think I'll ever be that brave again.

One vid I'd keep of everything I've seen - Us by lim. Aside from being one of the best vids I've ever seen in its own right, I thought it would be appropriate to keep this fan record/interpretation of fanworks if a large bunch of fanworks were lost forever.

One of the vids that had a formative influence on me - New Frontier by heresluck. I don't even think I really understood what motion and pacing were until I "got" this vid... and I didn't exactly get it upon first view. To this day I think appreciation of this vid's construction usually marks a new milestone in a vidder's development.

Fan Comments

obsessive24's ability to construct narratives within a vid is almost beyond compare; she constantly floors me with what she accomplishes and I find myself watching her work over and over, picking up on new details every time I do so.