The recent news that Richard Armitage is cast in ‘The Hobbit’ has some speculating about his abilities, and for some he comes up wanting. As a former skeptic of Mr. Armitage, I don’t care what they think. Once they actually watch him in action, all that negative talk will be a thing of the past. Oh, I’m sure there will be a few naysayers. Aren’t there always? But those aside, most will be pleased with his performance. The guy can pull off just about anything. I have yet to see him in drag, but somehow I feel sure he could pull that off too. LOL!
Now where was I?
Oh, yeah, RA was cast in a big budget movie!!! Someone slap me ’cause I think I’m dreaming. But really it makes sense. He’s just that good. Am I biased? Damned right, but it’s my gut that dictates it, and rarely is it wrong. Sounds arrogant I know, but it’s true. You can ask SO, but then I’m keeping SO to myself, and he doesn’t get to read this blog and interact with any of you here. I just get to talk about him. Along with talking about Richard Armitage.
For anyone new who has landed here out of curiosity about Richard’s work, you can see several different clips on my “Who’s Richard Armitage?” page or at RichardArmitageNet.Com, aka the mother lode, or if you’re in a hurry, you can watch a showreel of his work:
Showreels courtesy of Elvira Sweeney and uploaded here with express permission.
Stick Figure Richard (SFR as fans affectionately refer to him) is a man who maddens women. He may also be a genius who has discovered the secret of transmitting pheromones through the really small screen — YouTube. How else to explain that within hours of his first appearance fans all wanted their own SFR? Natazukii may have to create a fan club. ;-)
And I had thought that SFR fever was confined to a small number of bloggers, but now I know it’s much more widespread. Otherwise how to explain normally level-headed female friends from various and sundry blogs and forums who became flushed-cheek and bright-eyed at the possibility of finding SFR in their mailboxes? “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. But he is gorgeous,” cried the most frenzied, and at possibility of receiving hers in the mail, one asked, “Listen, do you think it would be totally unprofessional if I took him to work?”
Now it seems that SFR really gets around. First he was in Canada, then the U.S. Now he’s across the Atlantic, and I notice he was smart enough to visit Spain after the Running of the Bulls. Oh, yeah, SFR is one clever piece of parchment, and I’m sure he knows how to get in and out of tight places.
I only have one question: where is the paper doll to build him up? “Given that I’m going to be abroad for the next six months, it’s no bad thing to be single this year,” he says ruefully. “It’s a peripatetic existence I’ve seen others struggle with.” Ooh, words like peripatetic make my heart skip a beat, and he actually knows what they mean!
So all you paper dolls listen up. You’ve got a shot in six months. Wonder what kind of vellum is alluring to him. Something to think about when you quit dreaming about Lucas.
Candid shot is mine, and I can’t think of a more fitting “frame” than the “horns” from a deer hunt.
This post was Nat inspired. Yeah, I’m sure that’s obvious, but I still wanted to say it. Thanks for the good times, Nat.
edit: and I can’t forget about Richard Armitage:
Dear Rich,
Thank you for being a good sport. Well, I assume you’re a good sport.
Sincerely,
One of your crazy fans
edit: I’ve changed the link to the Times Piece so that it is accessible again, and I’m grateful to the ladies at Richard Armitage Central, who made it possible for me to have something to link. Thank you, Ladies for all the great work you do!!
is in this video below if you haven’t seen the first Spooks episode of Series 9. So don’t say I haven’t warned you. But if you don’t care or if you’ve seen it, then enjoy:
I think Juliet ought to have an award for this video. Wonderfully done! and so quickly.
Angela (aka Spikesbint) broke her hiatus from vidding to come back and make one for RA, and so I have to break my hiatus from this blog, which I honestly thought would last me at least another 24 hours. I can’t help but post Angela’s video even though I swore to myself I wasn’t going to do anything else about RA’s Birthday. There’s been plenty done already elsewhere and much better than my piddly effort. I hope you will check out Nat’s blog if you haven’t already as well as Phylly’s, and frankly, you could probably click on every link in the ‘Addict List’ or ‘Places to Get a Fix’ and see some really creative stuff. I’ve spent at least an hour or more today reading and watching what I’ve found there. But I’m going to highlight this video because Angela is one of my favorite vidders.
NOTE: if you’re looking for Yorkshire Wench’s videos, they are no longer accessible online. Go here for more information.
Man, that name conjures all sorts of things. Of course John Thornton and his proximity to Yorkshire, and as a good little RA fan I know RA has ties to Yorkshire as well, and not only due to his interest in Richard III. Then there is my own experience with the place. I was simply overwhelmed by Yorkshire and really bummed I didn’t get to spend more time there. I love history and having read about the War of the Roses, I really wanted to see Yorkshire as I got to see Lancashire. Plus, my camera was having a problem when I drove through there, so I didn’t get one picture! Perhaps this means I have to go back to the U.K. and rectify that? Oh yeah, that’s what it means. LOL!
I wanted to embed this wonderful picture of the Yorkshire Dales, but WP is being a bully, so I’ve uploaded it, Do me a favor and click on the photo to see its original, and hey, you should probably vote for this picture on that site as well.
But all of that is not what this post is about. This is about someone who has supplied many RA fans with countless hours of pleasure in viewing videos and screencaps. YorkshireWench was one of the first to make fanvideos of RA’s works, and I have several. They are some of the first RA videos I obtained, and I still have them in online storage and some on my iPod. I think I’ve thanked her for those on LiveJournal on several occasions (but not as RAFrenzy). However, I’m going to thank her again because she’s shutting down her website, and I’m taking the occasion to tell her again how grateful I am for her work, which is really all I know of her except that I think her name is Claire and she’s a Pisces like me.
If you’re new to RA, then you have probably never seen these videos, since they are not on YouTube. Here is the link to her website [link disabled; see edit below] where you can get links to her videos on Vimeo. You will have to get the links on her site since all of these videos are private and therefore will not come up in search results on Vimeo. To access them you will need a password, which is listed on the homepage of her site. You can also download the videos in various formats. I recommend downloading because the quality is so much better than Vimeo.
Some of my favorites:
Any Other Name (Robin Hood)
Requiem for a Dream (Robin Hood)
Upside Down (The Impressionists)
Adagio for Strings (North and South)
What If (North and South)
Enough about that; go take a look, and if you’re offended by some slash, you might not want to look. I’ll tell you plainly that I’m not a fan of slash, but there are plenty of others to like, and I do. Just so you know, “Any Other Name” is one of my all time favorite Guy videos, I just couldn’t upload it or easily link to it for my top ten fanvids.
edit: since I wrote this piece, Yorkshire Wench has shut down her site, but I have obtained links to all of her Richard Armitage videos on Vimeo, which you can find here. If you want links to all of her videos, you can find them here. But if you go directly to Vimeo, the password is butterfly.
Every time I sit down to finish off some more diary entries and plunge all of you back into my struggle with becoming a fangurl, my attention goes to the fanvids. I’ll get back to it, but maybe I don’t really want to know why I’m a fangurl. I’d rather indulge the obsession for now. In that interest, there is a recent “vidder” (can we come up with a better word than vidder? I don’t like it. Not sure I know exactly why, but I could speculate. Mainly it just sounds like something mundane, unimaginative and any other dreary word I can think of, and Miss Hale is far from that. So I’ll have to think about using another word in the future). Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, about to introduce you to misshale78. I’ll let her work do the talking.
A perfect video for Strike Back:
Can’t go wrong with Muse, but this is even better:
I like R&B/Pop Fusion if the singer is good and I don’t have to look at her/him singing. This is much better to look at:
There are so many more, and I left out a couple that I’ll post later. Go check out her channel if you haven’t already.
Okay, so I don’t know who all loves a certain video, but a few do if my email is any indication, and I think I’ve made it clear how much I love it. :D I will say again that its name fits — “Guy-Supermassive….”
Oh, and the shot above is from one of the best parts of the video — when the song’s bridge is playing. LOVE IT! Perfect clip!
I’m excited Elvira, per Joana’s enthusiastic consent, has now put it up on her site RAfanvids, and in several formats. If you’ve had trouble viewing from your phone, perhaps this will help. Check it out.
Enjoy!
edit:
Thanks to Elvira I’ve uploaded a better copy of the video to YouTube and disabled the older copy.
Until now I’ve just been teasing. But that Sean Pruen video has me messed up in the head. LOL! Yes, I’m laughing, but it’s a kind of hysterical laugh that would creep you out if you heard it. LOL!
I don’t even want to analyze the video. Yes, I’ve analyzed others in minute detail, but I dare not tell you what I’m really thinking about some of the things I’ve looked at. Better to make it a joke. I’m having a hard time making something funny out of this:
And if that one doesn’t do it for you, then how ’bout one of these?
If you’re unmoved, then you are dead.
If Sean ever reads this entry, I hope he knows this is what happens when “viral” is a label. ;-)
Screencaps courtesy of my stash by way of Sean Pruen’s lovely video to be found here.
See Diary Part 17 here, or to access all entries, hit “The Diary” tab above.
Entry — Early Fall, 2008:
The Cleopatra debacle put a damper on my obsession with watching Richard Armitage. For a couple of days anyway. But when I don’t know what to watch, I do what I always do — go back to YouTube. One of these days I might get my hands on Between the Sheets, but until then, I guess my Guy of Gisborne obsession will have to be indulged. I was hoping to salve my conscience by staying away from that silly show. But I can’t stay away from Guy fan videos. I can’t stay away from YouTube. The seduction is not only Guy but the shortness of the videos. They’re no more than ten minutes and most of them are three minutes. How bad can that be? 10 minutes x 50? Surely not. 3 minutes x 50? If I’m honest.
All of this makes me afraid to know the number of videos I’ve watched. Dang! if YouTube isn’t so “kind” to count them for me. I can’t stand looking at that number. Maybe there’s an easy way to erase the counter. Is this why I went to college? Is this why I know all the crap I know? So I can reset my counter on YouTube? Ohmygod! I’ve become that consumer I always railed against — the big open mouth. Just shove it in! No! But I can’t stop gorging myself on these videos. They’re too good!! I actually feel myself getting withdrawal when I don’t watch them for a few days and can almost feel my brain being rewired while I watch. When I’m done, I’m in a kind of stupor. Not quite slack jawed but definitely a glaze over my eyes.
But is it really hurting anyone for me to watch them? 10,000+ and counting. What is wrong with me? I mean Guy is a terribly interesting character, and Richard Armitage is definitely sexy, but this is absurd. And I’ve even toyed with doing a video myself. Noooooooo! I must stop this!
Just one more:
[Big time rationalization coming up]
Oh dear Lord, I think I passed out. I have to put this on my Facebook wall!
A little while later:
LOL! I got several comments about the Guy video. From “I want to watch what you’re watching!” to “Who is that?!!!” I love it. But I really loved saying, “Oh, that’s nothing. Wait ’til you hear him talk.” When I hear him speak, it dredges up all kinds of long dead possibilities. But I’ll never tell my friends that. They can figure it out for themselves, and actually I don’t want to talk about it.
For now this is an even better way to get Richard Armitage converts than having them watch Vicar of Dibley although Vicar of Dibley was a better way than North and South. People just don’t want to watch a four hour mini-series, and especially not when it’s a period drama. At least my friends don’t seem to like the idea — even if they do read. As one put it to me, “I’d rather read the book.” But put up a video of Guy in action? Yeah, it’s like a secret weapon even the loftiest mind can’t withstand. Maybe YouTube isn’t so bad.
For a while now I’ve wanted to get inside the head of someone in particular. No, it’s not Richard Armitage. Heck, I’m trying to stay out of his head. But it’s someone whose influence on his fans (especially in America) is untold in my opinion, and the effect on me personally has been, well, this blog wouldn’t exist without it. For over three years her creations have given me countless hours of pleasure, and there’s an energy that comes with them that’s had me often wondering about their creator. Her name is Heather. Some of you know her as Heathra or Heathdances from YouTube. I think of her as The Big Kahuna, and I’m honored to be the first to interview her.
Heather, I guess you know by now you’re responsible for introducing me to Richard Armitage, and of course all that’s ensued. What I’ve wanted to know for a long time, and perhaps have missed in everything I’ve read, is how you were introduced to him and did you become an instant fan or did that take awhile to build?
That is great! I love to hear the fact that I am partly responsible for someone else’s RA addiction! LOL Me getting introduced to RA? It’s actually probably similar to a lot of people. I have been and still am a huge fan of Pride & Prejudice and as I was looking on Amazon, it recommended North & South, probably because I liked Pride & Prejudice. ;-) I read the reviews and everyone was saying how much they loved it and if you like P&P, you will love this, so I took a chance and bought it. This was probably back around April 2006. About two days later I got it and because it was 4 hours I thought I would watch the first half that night and then the second half the next night, since I started watching it at 10pm. LOL Well, let’s just say I stayed up until 2am because after the first half I couldn’t leave it there! Then I watched the kissing scene at the end about 10 times before going to bed! ha ha ha! I was hooked! I think I watched it almost everyday for about two weeks. I pretty much became an instant fan. I was making fan videos of P&P at the time, and then I made my first fan video of N&S and it got me even more into Richard. Then kept doing more videos! LOL Someone asked if they could share my N&S “How To Save a Life” video on C19, and I thought what is that? So I told her she could, and then I joined because I was curious and noticed all these people who were just as curious about Richard as I was! I wanted to watch everything this man was in! I joined when Robin Hood Season 1 came out and Vicar of Dibley, and I was in absolute heaven after that and could not get enough. LOL!
I’ve often said there should be a warning label on that movie, but maybe your videos also need a warning label! They are highly addictive. I’ve enjoyed them as much or more than some movies or tv shows. Never knew I could get that much out of a 3-5 minute video. Maybe this could be chalked up to simple synergy that almost always occurs when visuals and music are combined. But hey, there are lots of fan videos on YouTube within the RA fandom that have good visuals and good music yet don’t capture my imagination as yours have. So I am very curious how you create these videos. Would you share how you conceive a video and bring it to completion?
You want me to reveal my secrets??! ha ha Only kidding! It really isn’t a huge secret, and I am sure many others do the same thing I do when it comes to making a video. It really all starts with a song. Every time I listen to a song on the radio or YouTube or my iPod my brain seems to go into video mode where clips start flashing in my mind if the song I am listening to gives me an idea for a video. So for me it starts with the song, and then I visualize the video in my head and what fandom I want to vid to. A lot of the time I will write down my ideas. I had to do storyboards in art school; it’s the same thing. Usually the video is something RA has done whether it be North & South, Robin Hood, or something else. He has definitely been my muse the last 4 years, but I do want to try and branch out to other fandoms. Although my mind keeps wanting to vid to something RA related for some reason! LOL
Once I get an idea in my head and start working on the video I go into what I call “video mode” where you won’t hear or see me for a few days. I get started and just can’t stop until it is done! My videos seem to take longer these days, because I think they seem to get more detailed than they used to be. I started out vidding with Windows Movie Maker, and then I used Ulead Video Studio for videos like Sexy Back (the first one). I felt limited after awhile so I started using Adobe Premiere Pro and used that for about two years. I recently got an iMac, which I have been wanting to get for FOREVER, and being a Graphic Designer I have always wanted a Mac but could never afford it while I was in college. I got my iMac back in October 2009, and then switched to Final Cut Pro for my video editing. Which is what I currently use. My last two videos were made in Final Cut Pro, and I took a huge step in my video editing since I started using it. I feel there are no limits to what I am able to do with it!
I usually start by setting markers where I want my transitions or switching of my clips to be to the beat of the music. Sometimes though it is just to give me a general idea at first of where the beats are. A lot of the time I can’t hit the mouse fast enough to set the marker! LOL But sometimes it is to the lyrics. I like to switch it up because I don’t want to hit EVERY beat. That can get repetitive, and you lose the emotion in the video. I am also really particular in selecting my clips. I try to match the lyrics to the song, and I love showing clips with a lot of emotion. I think showing the emotion in the clips is really important, and the audience can feel more connected to the video when there is an emotional connection. That is part of the reason why I am very picky when it comes to which clips to use, and I try not to over-do the effects in the video. When you have so many effects, you cannot tell what is going on in the video, and you lose the emotional connection. So I think the effects should help get the story or idea across and add or enhance the video not just be thrown in because it looks cool. I hope I am making sense here! LOL
Making total sense.
So the emotion in a video is one of the most important things I try to achieve. I want the viewer to feel happy, or laugh, or be sad, or even cry when watching one of my videos. I hope I have succeeded in doing that with some viewers. :-) That’s part of the reason I love making videos with Richard in them. He is so emotional and the expression and look in his eyes tells so much. He is a great actor, and I love making videos about him because he conveys so much depth. There is just something about him. I don’t think I will ever get tired of making videos of him. ha ha I hope I am not rambling too much or boring you! LOL
NOPE, not boring me at all.
Sometimes when I have finished a video and watch it all the way through, I have cried. I feel very emotionally involved in my videos. I am pouring out my heart and soul and putting it out there for everyone to see. My videos are a part of me and who I am, and I am an emotional, caring and sensitive person who wears her heart on her sleeve. I think I show a lot of that in my videos. “Fix You” is one of my videos that is really special to me for various reasons. It was a time in my life that I was going through that was really hard for me and I was deeply depressed. It was my therapy video. It is probably my favorite video to this day.
I’m fascinated by what you’ve done. I’m so glad you’ve been willing to put yourself out there. Just like RA is willing to put himself out there to meticulously convey the passion and emotions of a character, you’ve done that with these videos, and it’s produced something wonderful that continues to resonate. And that limitless feel is becoming more and more obvious in your videos. By the way “Fix You” is my favorite video of yours, and I intentionally kept it from my top ten fanvids so I could highlight it here. Now I know why.
Would you tell us about some other videos you really enjoy? Are you inspired by any videos?
If they are really well done, I enjoy any fandom of videos. I have to admit I can’t watch Anime. It just isn’t my cup of tea, and I don’t feel the emotional connection with it. I like connecting with real people in a video. Those are the ones that affect me emotionally and I enjoy the most. They don’t have to be these super fast edited videos or the ones with a thousand effects. If it is a beautiful video that tells a beautiful story and makes me feel something for it, then I can watch it over and over again.
I think I was one of the few first vidders on YouTube, but there were a few Pride & Prejudice fan videos that inspired me and made me want to see if I could make one myself. It really all started with my inspiration of Pride & Prejudice. One vidder who inspired me to make my own was darcywil. She was one of the first P&P vidders, and she did one of the first North & South videos I saw too. Elvira also inspires me in a lot of her videos. She isn’t afraid to be different and her uniqueness is what makes her stand out to me from other vidders, and I love her “arty” videos.
Oh, I love Elvira too. I’ll be getting around to her. :D I have to laugh about darcywil because her My Confession video is the first one I ever downloaded. Love it! and love her detailed explanation of it. Wonder how many people she’s inspired. If we include you and all the people you have inspired, the number must be enormous. Do you have any advice for others who may want to make fan videos?
Hmm… It is a very addicting hobby! LOL I would say experiment around. Don’t do what everyone else is doing just because it is “cool” and make videos for yourself first and foremost. Make what you want to make and use songs you enjoy because part of the enjoyment of making a video is because YOU enjoy it. That is sooooo important!
Great advice for a lot of life!
One last thing. I’ve said a time or two how much you’ve done to promote Richard Armitage’s work, and obviously, I‘m thankful. But I have to ask you: are you sure you don’t work for him? ;-)
Thank you! I am happy to promote Richard and he deserves it. It’s really lovely to know that my videos have helped do that!
LOLOL!! I WISH I worked for him! Although I wouldn’t get much done if I did work for him because I would want to stare at him all day long and try and flirt with him. LOL! Hey, can you blame me? I am thirty and flirty!
RAFrenzy 