Ace wrote:I absolutely could not agree more with your initial point, which is please make me believe what I'm watching. Going off of what you said, anything that fails to allow me to suspend my disbelief pretty much kills it for me. And unfortunately, personally, that includes every type of quicksand substance that's too watery. First and foremost, this includes the Hollywood Quicksand; there is literally not a single scene involving HWQS that any producer has produced or ever will produce that I would ever bother watching, even for free. I realize this is personal taste here, but I simply do not understand how anyone could ever prefer a classic quicksand struggle/sink scene taking place in essentially water with cork floating on top, versus the exact same scene, only taking place is deep, thick mud. <snip>
I'm squarely in this camp as well. When the victim could obviously, and I mean really, really obviously, swim or just plain walk to safety, it's a bucket of water on a simmering fire.
Likewise, visible standing water is simply Kryptonite to a scene. Major buzzkill.
I keep asking myself, "am I just spoiled by the embarrassment of riches of videos being produced these days?".
Yes.
And no. I have never produced a QS video, and likely never will, but I do know what I like and I'm sorry to say I see less of it of late.
I know there are some that enjoy the 'frolicking' type scenes. I'm not one of them.
This is serious stuff. Deadly serious - you can't touch it without being slowly sucked to your doom.
(this is my fantasy - if you don't like it, go have your own over there...)
So it's frustrating when the victim starts bobbing up and down so much it's clear they could simply exit the trap at any time. ZZzzzz...
Sure, character development is nice, but if the sinking isn't compelling, what does it matter? No, it doesn't hurt, but it's hardly the reason we're watching.
Okay, that's enough of the criticism - QS video producers: please take this as constructive criticism and nothing more.
On the positive side, how about examples of scenes that do work (for me)? In no particular order:
"Young Lady Deep Mud" - Kristine in a white bikini (underwear, whatever), a camera, and an extremely determined videographer (Duncan). Simple and effective.
"Security Girl" - Paris in a white t-shirt that's just a little too small and clay pit that isn't. Yummy. Only wish she took longer to sink. Check out the bounce as she enters the pit. Mmmm...
"Soft Evidence" - Darby, tights, and a peat bog in perfect condition. 'Frenemy', thy name is Kim. Walks the very thin line between wicked and fun to perfection.
"Butt First" - Paris and yummy clay that takes its time with her. Wouldn't you?
"The Ice Skater" - Lena (sigh) demonstrates (successfully) a number of positions a truly talented ice skater sinker can assume before the final one. Notice the air gap around her head as she gets deep? That's the perfect thickness, density, etc. Lovely work.
"Execution Hannah" - Hannah Perez (double sigh) (in almost half of a bikini) gets a pass on the plop-and-sink critique as it's called for in the scene. And because she takes her sweet time going down. If we cold have watched her thighs being swallowed... Now that would have been an eleven on a ten-point scale.
I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but that should give any aspiring QS filmographer a good idea of what constitutes a good scene for this slightly jaded viewer.
Cheers,
sp