Stress (Stargate Atlantis vid)

This article is about Stargate Atlantis vid. For Newsies fan, see Stress (fan).

Vid
Title:	Stress
Creator:	Clucking Belles aka Sandy and Rache
Date:	2006
Format:
Length:
Music:
Genre:
Fandom:	Stargate Atlantis
Footage:
URL:	Streaming at AO3; Download
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Stress is a Stargate Atlantis vid by the Clucking Belles. The vid has been used by some fans to explain the art of vidding to non-fans.

Recs and reviews

Stress will always be my quintessential Rodney McKay vid. So amazing!"

This is one of the foundational Rodney vids in Atlantis and with very good reason. It is Rodney McKay.

This song is pure Rodney McKay. It’s marvellous, and the vid is marvellous too. It exploits the expressive mobility of David Hewlett’s mouth and hands with musicality and flair. In other words, it’s a good dancer, I spose. It revels in talky face, to great effect, playfully accenting the wah-wah funk bassline with grimaces and eyerolls, and picking up the jazz trumpet in Rodney’s (many, oh so many) hand flourishes. The tune is light, bouncy, with witty, self-mocking lyrics that build energetically to a climax, rather like Rodney working himself into a fit. It’s cleverly cut ... it is cut, isn’t it? Oh, I don’t know now. I could swear there was a whole bit about hang-gliding...Brain like a sieve.

It’s basically one joke, but it’s a good joke. It’s properly funny and it’s sustained throughout the whole 03;18. It celebrates and pokes fun at Rodney’s (and Hewlett’s portrayal of him) facundity and his high dramatics, or histrionics, I guess. But the vid’s basic sympathy and affection for the guy shines through and allows us to laugh with/at him freely. Because, yeah, you know, he’s a drama queen, but he’s saving the galaxy! Get the man a cup of goddamn coffee!

The vid’s really strong and snappy, with fantastic timing and a feeling of great energy and fun, all the way up to about 02;01. Here it kind of falls down a little, for me, for about the next six or eight seconds; the changes seems confused and irregular and they don’t go with the words (and the images pretty closely follow the literal meaning of each word, with book giving you an image of a book, and laptop giving you a laptop, which is why I mention it) so I didn’t understand why they were there. Then it finds its rhythm again and hits every single punchline up to about 02;39. Shark! Wheeee! Glee! Then there are two shots that just don’t work for me at all; they just seem completely out of place and time. I just don’t get it and I rewatched this vid over and over trying to get them. I dunno. Anyway. It’s only two shots. This is a great vid. You all should watch it. Yes. Hurrah!

"When I think "show, not tell," I think of action, of characters doing something, not talking about it; I think of constant movement. The characters we focus on in vids do not always make it easy to avoid the dreaded ‘talking head’, but some characters are more actively resistant to being ‘shown, not told’ than others. Rodney Mckay of Stargate Atlantis is constantly telling. The vidders here managed to capture the idea of Rodney under constant pressure and reacting to it (kind of enjoying it, kind of hating it) with the way he moves, the tension in his body, and his unique hand gestures. The first clip in the vid immediately brings focus to Mckay’s movements, highlighting his hands, where we should be looking. In hindsight, it also gives context to the vid without hitting the audience over the head with it: Rodney playing rock, paper, scissors with himself, constantly caught between a decision. Beyond being an excellent example of image relation in vidding, and showing instead of telling, it’s a *fun* vid. I actively enjoy watching it again and again.

"Characters: McKay-centric! I think imsanehonest first got me into this song at some point a couple years back, and, you know, it's not the sort of thing you ever think someone will manage to turn into a workable songvid. This is an awesome, awesome way to be proven wrong. As the vidders' summary says: "Rodney McKay + Stress [equals] OTP". It's so, so true. Because some of the above fanvids were pretty dark, I wanted to end with this one, which is just incredibly fun. Rodney McKay in a nutshell, folks. With lots of coffee."

"Rodney McKay + Stress [equals] OTP. I don't think I can improve on that summary, but here goes. The clucking belles have a gift for timing and humor that's just amazing, and this vid showcases it beautifully. The song choice is perfect to Rodney, to the point where as far as I'm concerned now, it was written specifically for him. And all of that sounds very serious and analytical, when the actual upshot of this vid is: omg, HEE! So if you need a little "hee" in your day, definitely check this out."

"Oh, Livejournal; oh, SGA fandom; oh, oh, those of you not at Escapade or lucky enough to have a con dvd, the marvel that you have awaiting you as soon as these ladies get this online. Seriously, the place is going to explode with joy. The Rodney vid of our dreams, people. I'm so stupidly happy still about this vid and it's been days. I've got the song in rotation and the con dvd within reach. Hurry, Belles! Hurry, hurry please

"It's. Just. Perfect. The most perfect Rodney song out there. Srsly! WATCH THIS VID! I laughed myself sick. Not only are the edits just wonderful, the the lyrics, oh, and how everything matched to the lyrics, oh it just perfect"