The WOAD Society/Blood, Vid, Sex, Magik

cover of the second videocassette along with the back of the accompanying booklet

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The first WOAD collection was released in 2002 on 3 hand-copied tapes rubber banded together with booklets, covers, and custom labels. On them was the following message:

Warning: These tapes may be hazardous. They're long. Take a break. They've got things that may disturb you, including, but not limited to, sex (of various kinds and involving various genders and species), romance, mysticism, technology, violence, humor in poor taste and characters you can't stand. When you encounter one of these it may be time to take that break.

All told, about 350 sets of tapes were distributed. Luminosity created the creative intro titles for each tape. The second tape (Blood, Vid, Sex, Magik) was loosely themed around the idea of magic and/or sex, and contained:

Opportunities	Highlander	Killa and Carol S	Carol: I had tried selling the idea of this vid to several different vidders before I got into Highlander fandom without any luck. I mentioned it to Killa early in our collaboration, but even she took six months to come around. It was well worth the wait to finally get to see this constructed reality. Killa’s knowlege of all of the source material, especially all the money shots from The Raven, made this vid possible. Killa: I have to say, I can understand why others didn't take the bait -- I don't think we could have done this without the Raven footage. Lucky me!
The Last Time	Highlander	The Shimmertwins	This was our first vid, my daughter ozonebaby and I. I had never heard Fuel before I heard this song, and now I’m a fan. It was a strange thing that I, an unapologetic Duncan slut, would choose to make a Methos vid first. I wanted to show that the Horsemen episode was a time of great regret for Methos, but one that he was sick of dealing with, and that the Horsemen weren’t cuddly little bears. Killa and Carol S held our hands through the entire effort, and they’re the only reason it’s even showable, much less successful as a vid.
I Want	Highlander	Killa	I think every vidder I’ve met has a song that was the song that drove them to vid, the song they couldn’t get out of their head, couldn’t stop visualizing clips to, until something reached critical mass and they sold their soul to the Sony Corporation. This was that song for me. Amanda is a woman who knows what she wants, and what she wants, she usually gets. She’s also a woman capable of deep feeling. She often hides that fact behind a mischievous, fun-loving spirit, but just as often, she gives her heart freely, says what she thinks and shows what she feels. I adore the character of Amanda and the fun, grace and nuance Elizabeth Gracen gave her, and this song was my chance to say all the things I wanted to say about what I see in her.
The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	Highlander	Killa and Carol S	I first came across this song at the tail end of a story by Rhiannon Shaw, and was so taken by the title that I went and dug out my S.O.’s Dead Can Dance album to listen. I could see immediately why it had said Methos to Rhiannon, so when Carol suggested it as a possible vid, I said, definitely. Easier said than done. I think Carol and I shared a very particular vision of what we wanted this vid to be, and we talked about it in nebulous terms that I’m sure would have made little sense to anyone else - odd for two such analytical types - yet it seemed we were very much in synch about what we wanted. Technically, it was extremely challenging. My system decided to throw a shoe just as I was rounding the far curve, and I’d already pushed it to the limits applying color, contrast, and half a dozen other filters to just about every clip. About two steps from the finish line, my whole system gave up the ghost, and only desperation and sheer cussedness rescued the vid from oblivion. Carol and I estimated we spent well over a hundred and twenty hours on this vid. In some ways, I feel it’s less than it could have been if I’d had the patience and stamina to put half again that much time into it. On the other hand, emotionally, I think it says exactly what we meant it to, and I’m satisfied with it in that respect. The more I listened to the song, the more I kept thinking again and again of Kat Allison’s story The Parting Glass, until I was seeing overlapping circles on a napkin every time I played the song. I hope that the vid resonates with the story for her the way it does for me.
Enemy	Highlander	Luminosity	This is another song that I had in my to-vid directory long before I bought the vidding equipment. I knew it was going to be a Highlander vid, but for the longest time, I had planned to make it D/M, even though I knew it wasn’t quite right. I had actually started the vid three times, using different set ups - D/M, M/Cass, M/K - and it didn’t work. Also, I had to deal with the issue of clip use. The Horsemen eps are probably the most overused clips in Highlander vidding, so I decided to play with them a little, to try to make them seem new. It was Suze’s idea that the vid be D/K, and she was right. The vid is Kronos’ POV, and takes place in Duncan’s mind, during/after the Double Quickening. I don’t think that Kronos ever really took Duncan seriously as an enemy, not until that moment when he saw Methos turn. By then, it was too late. I wanted to present a logical argument on Kronos’ part, but when the vid was over, I wanted the viewer to remember that she was listening to an unreliable, psycho narrator.
Sand and Water	Highlander	Melina	I’d wanted to do a vid about Duncan’s loss of Tessa for a long time, but until I heard this song used on an episode of E.R. (of all places) I hadn’t found the right song. The lyrics aren’t a perfect match, but the ones that did parallel the show made it impossible to pass up. This vid is also probably a good place to mention that none of us who vid Highlander could do what we do if it weren’t for the incredible directors who worked on the show - it wasn’t like a television show, but like a series of 48-minute movies. There are few other TV shows that rely less on typical over-the-shoulder shots and more on dollies, cranes and even the occasional helicopter than Highlander. The directors (and designers, too) appreciate the value of scale, scope, and using a camera to tell a story. They gave us all the beautiful clips we have to use in our vids - the amazing, cinematic clips in this vid from The Darkness and Homeland certainly highlight their collective talent.
Don't Fear the Reaper	Highlander	Melina, Luminosity, and Killa	Melina: What can you say about this vid except that sometimes it’s really fun to be subversive? Not just to subvert the dominant paradigm, but to fuck with it as much as possible? This vid was Lum’s idea, and it started coming together at Z-Con in 1999 (it’s a great story, but too long to tell here - ask one of us and we’ll gladly share). In short, you had three card-carrying Duncansluts who’d just heard one too many times that Methos was cool because he was Death (Death on a horse!) and Duncan was a boring Boy Scout - and so this vid happened. The clips of Duncan as Reaper are all in context - there’s nothing here from the Dark Quickening. The song itself was a bit difficult to handle because of the tempo changes, and we ultimately cut quite a bit. Finding the clips we used at the beginning and end of death-images was fun and challenging, and so was putting together the sequence of beheadings. We tried to find beheadings that were shot from different angles or were somehow visually different, and I think in the process I looked at every beheading ever done on Highlander.
The Divorce Song	Hard Core Logo	Carol S and Kat Allison	I had played this song for Kat some months previously, hoping she’d help me spot a fandom for it. Not only did she spot the fandom she laid out the clips. As a result, this came together more rapidly than any other vid I’ve done. It was also my first experiment with voiceovers within a vid.
When You Say Nothing at All	Buffy	Carol S and Jackie K.	We had long thought that Alison Kraus had the perfect voice for Tara and had considered vidding several other songs from this album for her but none of them quite fit. Then "Mr. Webster" showed up and we said, "Aha!"
Bad Moon Rising	Buffy	Don C.	After Buffy’s death, I felt she needed a tribute vid, even though everyone knew she was coming back in the next season. While driving to work one day, this song came on the radio and the gods smiled down on me for that brief instant of inspiration. Glory is represented in the lyrics by “trouble on the way” and “earthquakes and lightning.” Since the subject matter of the vid is so powerful, I also wanted a powerful opening and ending to the vid, which I tried to accomplish by using Buffy’s line: “We’re not all going to make it. You know that.”
Paranoid	Buffy	Don C.	Faith is one of my favorite characters and her downward spiral is a great story. I wanted to show that anguish and this song, from Faith’s perspective, is dead on. It’s a dark vid, without a lot of hope, but I also wanted to redeem Faith in some small way, which I attempted to do in the final scenes of the vid.
Your Horoscope for Today	Buffy	Carol S and Jackie K.	Carol S: It’s lovely when your collaborators do all the work. Jackie found the song and the clips. I just put them together. Jackie K: I tried to include all of the recurring characters and deeply regret that we were unable to include Principal Flutie and Larry The Gay Jock.
I'll Take Care of You	Angel	Carol S and Jackie K.	Normally the Dixie Chicks aren’t my sort of music, but when Jackie played me this song it really grabbed me. We played with different character combinations and finally hit on Doyle (who we miss a lot) and Cordelia. It was fun to show Cordelia’s sweeter side.
Girl Needs a Knife	Buffy	Carol S	I find obsessive relationships interesting (at a nice safer remove) and Faith and Buffy certainly had one. This song catches the underlying dementedness of it quite nicely. All of The Flash Girls' songs are off of Maurice and I except "Personal Thing" which is off of Play Each Morning Wild Queen. Ordering information can be found at dreamhavenbooks.com about midway down the page.
Vasoline	Hard Core Logo	Killa and Bone	One of my first vids. The song was Bone’s, and as soon as she played it for me I knew she was right, it was Billy. I’ve never had a vid come together this easily before or since. This vid was for Amy, who really started something with that first great story of hers, and who should always be listened to, because she is wise and knows things. I lost myself in Hard Core Logo when I’d been in a bad car accident and was laid up in bed, in a lot of pain, black and blue from head to toe. Take my word for it, HCL is good medicine for that and I was glad to have it. Also, I have to say, there’s just something incredibly hot about a guy in a mohawk and a cowboy hat.
Cheapshots: Volume I	Multimedia	OSF Productions (Suze and Luminosity)	This vid just rose up like Athena from the head of Zeus, like a volcano...like, like... BILE.... I had to get it out of me! Share the pain.
Everything You Want	Dark Angel	Carol S and Jackie K	Carol had long wanted to do something with this song and asked me to see if I could think of what. I thought it fit very well with this set of relationships.
Busted	Hard Core Logo	Killa and Bone	Bone suggested this song and many of the ideas that really make this vid work. It was her idea to try cutting out the first verse, something I hadn’t done before, and she had great instincts at every point where choices had to be made. When she spotted the clip for "I need another soul to feed on," I knew we were hooked. I actually love this vid, partly because when it comes right down to it, Joe Dick lights me up, partly because I tried some things with this vid that I just get a kick out of. The shot of Joe’s eyes overlaid on the hay bale shot is a nod to Magritte, one of my favorite painters. The shot of Joe falling away when Billy "shoots" him overlaid on the "fifteen strangers dancing" is meant to imply that they’re dancing on his grave, and he knows it, which probably means nothing to anyone else but me, but makes me happy. "I dreamed the buildings all fell down/we sat on my back porch and watched it" is so Joe/Billy that I find it hard to imagine it being written about anyone else. The shot of Joe in pain on "oh how I wish I were somebody else" still makes me tear up. I think this vid is my ugly stepchild - it’s a small fandom, it’s a long vid, it’s not a terribly appealing song - but I love it all the more for those things.
Cheap Shots: Volume II	Highlander	OSF Productions (Suze and Luminosity)	I was cleaning it and it went off. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I'm Too Sexy	Highlander	Melina	This was my first vid. I deliberately chose a fun, upbeat song with a definite beat, so I could learn the basics of the software without any technical fanciness (I think there’s one cross-fade in the whole thing.) It has no story and absolutely no point of view - other than the ihcatwalkll metaphor, it’s about as on-the-nose as you can get, but what the heck - it’s a big hit and a lot of fun at cons! It’s up to you to decide whether it works in your living room, too.
Stay in Bed, Forget the Rest	Highlander	Taselby and Kellan Dane	Kellan had been puttering around with this vid for a couple of days when I hijacked it and took over the editing. It’s pure, sexy fun.
Prince Charming Comes	Highlander	Killa	Carol sent this song to me, and had a vid idea for it, one that had been suggested to her by her friend Beth. It was a really good idea. As luck would have it, though, I had read elynross’ series of Highlander fairy tales a few too many times, and one day a very different idea for the same song ambushed me. Carol and I still have intentions to do Beth’s vid for her, and I feel a little badly that this vid isn’t it. This was a fairly early vid, and I learned a lot from it. At the time, I don’t think I’d seen any vids that used black space, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do for those first few seconds and I just had to try it. As soon as I laid those clips in, I was hooked, and I laid the rest of the vid down in a matter of about 2 hours. It was tricky, because all the clips came from one two-part episode, and I had to use them in chronological order because of the 'storytelling’ nature of the song, while still keeping the metaphor going.
Thing I Hate	Highlander	Luminosity	Evil Duncan! He’s so hot. <g> Killa and I talked about vidding this song before I even had vidding equipment, and I was determined to make a disturbing vid, one that would make the viewer feel like she’d been hit by a truck. I think I succeeded, at least in giving one viewer a post-viewing headache. My day has come!
Steam	Highlander	Killa	Bump and grind. Duncan and Methos. My goals were simple, but man, this is one long song. The major failing of the vid is that it’s really hard to find clips that demonstrate "Get alive with the dreamer’s dream!" between Duncan and Methos, since Duncan is much more likely to be wary and guarded around Methos than he is to show his passion and idealism, at least in any visual fashion that was lighthearted enough for this vid. In order to keep the emotional tones where I wanted them to be, I sacrificed consistency in the subject pronoun. There might have been several other solutions to this vid, either all slash or more balanced between the three characters, but I was unwilling to cut any of the song, including the "lady" reference at the end, and I was unwilling to give up any of those great Methosy lines to Amanda or Tessa. I just couldn’t bear to let lines like "so much better than the rest" or "you know your straight line from a curve" go to anyone but Methos. The result? A vid that doesn’t bear too much scrutiny, but does make me happy.
6'1"	Highlander	Killa, Kady and Carol S	Carol: I had been talking with Killa about doing this vid for Cassandra last winter. At Escapade I mentioned to Kady that we had this idea and she said she’d been thinking about the same thing, so we decided to combine forces. Killa: I learned from this vid that two collaborators are fun but three are even better when it comes to interpreting a song. I also want to thank Parda for her fanfic portrayal of Cassandra -- she really made me appreciate Cass as a seriously flawed, not entirely sane, but interesting character. The thing to remember when you're watching this vid is that Cass is not the most reliable narrator in the world. My goal was to show her as a sympathetic character, but one with a skewed vision of the world and a great capacity for self-deception.
Pretty Fly for a White Guy	Highlander	Killa	I’m embarrassed by this vid. I like Richie, I really do. But... first season Richie was just asking for it. T. Jonesy told me one day that she thought this would work as a Chekov vid, but who could stand to make a Chekov vid? I laughed, and agreed, but the song stuck with me, much to my dismay. I hope it’s funny - I think I lack the funny gene. Thanks to T. Jonesy for sharing her song with me.
Don't Mind Me	Highlander	Killa	I’ve been a fan of Lucy Kaplansky’s for a while, and the moment I heard this song I thought it had vid potential. I was really swamped at work, and elyn and I had been sharing our wish for a romantic, light-hearted Duncan/Methos story. I finally got a day off, and while I couldn’t whip up a story for her in one day, I could manage a vid. Not a lot to this one - it’s cute, it’s Duncan and Methos, and I still love the song.
Guilty	Highlander	Luminosity	Ooh! Look at this! Special effects! They terrified me. I wanted to make a slashy vid about anger and unrequited lust, and Guilty seemed to be the perfect song for it. I think that Duncan and Methos both feel that way, and I wanted to get over my fear of the program I was using. Also, someone had offered a criticism of an earlier vid, saying that it was a no-no to use the same clips in a vid. I disagreed. Vehemently. Repetition is a cornerstone of design, and just because the design is a moving image, it doesn’t mean that repetition is OUT. I like repetition. Guilty started out much more cartoony than it ended up, thank goodness, and probably could stand to have more effects deleted now, but I couldn’t bear to look at it for one. more. minute. And I have no fear of lens flares anymore.
Shackled	Hard Core Logo	Carol S and Kat Allison	This song had taken over my mind and really captured the inescapable nature of the Joe/Billy relationship. I am a bit sorry that I didn't cut the song more than I did but other than that there is a lot of this vid that makes me very happy. I'm immensely grateful to Kat for clips and intelligent suggestions.
Drowning...	Hard Boiled	Carol S	I love this movie and had been wanting to find something to vid it to but wasn't finding anything with words. Listening to this one day while the movie was running on the DVD I realized that motion matched, as did the structure. While I'm happy if others like this vid, it was very much one I did primarily for myself.
Swamp Witch	Blair Witch Project	Don C.	I’ll be honest here. The Blair Witch Project scared the willies out of me. I think it’s because some of the themes reminded me of a song I listened to as a kid on 8 track -- “Swamp Witch” by Jim Stafford. That song would give me nightmares, but still I loved listening to it. It’s probably the reason I’m a classic horror fan today. The vid works so well because the song and movie parallel each other in so many ways. I was attempting to go for a creepy vid rather than outright scary, much in the same manner as the film.