End of Year Vidding Meme: 2009

[beccatoria]

So, it's that time of year again and this marks the second year I've really felt I could claim to be a vidder. I did, however, vid sporadically for about two and a half years before that, but infrequently enough I really didn't feel it was a primary form of fannish participation for me.

I called 2008 the year vidding ate me. It was true. It's still true; 2009 has been, perhaps, even weirder in RL than 2008 and vidding - or some form of video editing - has continued to be a refuge from real life in weird and wonderful ways. Maybe in 2010 I'll find out if I can vid this much when I'm not stressed. I've been doing it for so long now, though, I think the answer will probably be yes. The idea that I am prolific at anything is still strange to this procrastinator, but hell, I'm not complaining.

SO: I will list all the vids I've made by month (with links) and then answer the meme questions.

For reference, last year's 2008 meme.

January

9 - BSG/Hancock Crossover Vidlet: I have weird memories of you

February

2 - BSG Vid: About Today

March

3 - BSG Vid: The Enemy Within (Collaboration with cyborganize, heyiya and metatxt as a gift for kiki_miserychic for zombiep0rn. I was the vidder.)

6 - BSG Vid: Trapdoor Trigger

April

None.

May

12 - BSG Fan Edit: Battlestar Redactica (Note: this is not a vid but rather a fan-edit of season 4.5 released under a pseudonym but as it falls into the same family of video editing antics and as it is the reason there's no actual vids for a five month period, I'm including it!)

June

17 - BSG Fan Edit: Battlestar Redactica DVD Extras (As above, this is not a vid but rather a collection of constructed AU scenes, sections of vidded podcast material, original podcasts and stupid antics filmed on a PSP camera with action figures, but again, it is included here for completeness.)

July

None.

August

5 - Farscape Vid: Gunz Yo

September

7 - BSG 20 Second Vidlet: Superman Made for daybreak777's itty-bitty-viddy-ficcy-thon.

7 - BSG 20 Second Vidlet: The Night Made for daybreak777's itty-bitty-viddy-ficcy-thon.

7 - BSG 20 Second Vidlet: When the President Talks to God Made for daybreak777's itty-bitty-viddy-ficcy-thon.

22 - BSG Vid: Sammy: 2,029 Years

24 - BSG Vid: Moon vs. Sun

October

None.

November

23 - BSG Vid: the Other Love Quadrangle (No, the Other Other One)

December

24 - Star Wars: Clone Wars Vid: Heroes of the Empire

AND NOW, MEME TIME:

Favourite

Hmm, this is surprisingly difficult as compared to last year. Actually it's probably Battlestar Redactica in terms of really feeling like I did something interesting, exciting and new - it occupies the emotional space that there's a war going on for your mind, laura, did for me last year. However, it's not really a vid and it wasn't particularly my intention to use it much in this meme because, well, not a vid, but a question like this really makes it impossible to avoid how much effort I put into it, how much I learned making it, how personally important its completion was to me and how it helped me achieve some level of peace of mind with regards to a show that was so important to me. It feels dishonest, somehow, not to mention it here.

If we're strictly talking about vids though, then I think my favourite is probably Gunz Yo. I'm really satisfied with the editing and the message and the lyric-matching in that vid, plus going back to Farscape after all this time was really nostalgic and cathartic.

Least Favourite

Probably I have weird memories of you. I don't hate it or anything and I still like the idea (and love that movie!) but I'm not sure how succesfully I conveyed the parallels between them or whatever and I think it's something that is generally very hard in crossovers - making the vid seem cohesive rather than just a vid that's about two different shows at the same time. And I'm not sure I succeeded there.

Most Successful

There are so many ways you can measure this. I think I'm going to vote for Moon vs. Sun because I feel very satisfied that it says everything I mean it to, and says it clearly and well. However, it's also interesting because I know that the message of it is somewhat...well, it's in my "language"? So like, I think it's a lot clearer to people who know me and essentially understood my feelings about 4.5 before they saw it than people who have no idea and come in cold? For them I think it can just be totally confusing? So perhaps it's a bad choice if we're talking about interpretational success for a wide audience, but if we're talking about personal satisfaction, then definitely this one.

I'd also give a passing mention to Heroes of the Empire as a real success in terms of pushing myself to do more with effects and stuff. I'm still not 100% happy with the laughing face masks, but I really love the moving split-screens. I don't think I'll ever be an effects whore but it's nice to know that I have a few options should I want to use them again.

Most Underappreciated by the Universe

I always feel mean with this one because, well, it seems ungrateful. But I guess I'd have to say it's a toss-up between Gunz Yo and Heroes of the Empire.

Now, I would add the caveat that I completely expected these to be much lower in terms of feedback because both are in fandoms I am not known for vidding and one of them is quite and old fandom and the other is obscure.

In addition, Gunz Yo actually did all right in terms of feedback (and certainly in terms of quality of feedback), it's just that I really, really think that vid is some of my best work, so obvs, I want it to be like, OMGSUCCESSFUL! And Heroes of the Empire, I posted on Christmas Eve knowing full well that everyone would be busy and would probably have forgotten about it by the time Christmas was over.

So I'm not really bitter about either one, just...I think they both probably do get passed by more than they would if they were BSG vids and it's a shame since I like them both more than some of my BSG vids?

Most Fun Video

the Other Love Quadrangle (No, the Other Other One). CLEARLY.

Video with the Single Sexiest Moment

Ugh, tough call there. Last year I took that in terms of technical success but this year I'm going to take it in terms of literal SEX and go with The Enemy Within for the constructed gay porn in it.

Biggest Vid Fail

Crapping out on half a dozen ideas including a half-finished D'Anna vid when BSG and I came this close to getting divorced. I know lots of people talk about how they have unfinished projects and stuff, but it's the first time I haven't finished a vid I've started. Though I hope to reclaim at least some of the ideas, and some of the half-finished D'Anna project in my first Big Project of 2010, but, uh, I have no idea how long that'll take me. And stuff.

Hardest Video to Make

Uuuuh, actually none of the vids totally kicked my ass this time, possibly because I started using programs other than WMM so effects, when I chose to use them, weren't so impossible and I haven't yet started trying to use really complicated ones (I kinda hope I never will!)

But probably the most challenging vid was Heroes of the Empire because I was learning a whole new program and one that was less intuitive than either Pinnacle or Ulead (the other two programs I started using this year).

Most Unintentionally Telling Video

I wasn't sure last year and I'm not entirely sure this year what this means, but I think I'm going to go with About Today. On the one hand, it was perhaps more intentionally telling than unintentionally telling. I was very clear about what I wanted to convey and I think I succeeded. But I will be honest, I wasn't expecting quite the amount or positivity of the feedback that I received which makes me think perhaps I struck more of a chord with my audience than I realised I was going to?

Things I've Learned

Dude, where to start? Three new vidding programs to begin with. Pinnacle, which I like for interface and functionality but hate for quality of renders, which led me to switch to Corel VideoStudio 12 (formerly Ulead) and which I still use in Windows and Cinelerra which I learned to use now that I've mainly switched to using Linux Ubuntu as my primary operating system. So...wow, yeah, I've made vids using four different vidding programs this year.

January - March: WMM

March - April: Pinnacle

April - November: Ulead

December: Cinelerra

I wouldn't call myself a master of any of them (or even a novice!) except WMM, but I think vidding in all these different environments did make me consider vidding differently - how to achieve effects in different programs, that sort of thing. I still wish the other programs had the ability to cut up clips within the program the way WMM does (though all three others have various weird versions of that) but in general, while I feel a little like I took the easy way out by not sticking with my weird relationship with WMM, I'm happy that I've shifted. Though looking at the vidding programs I use, I can't help but feel like it looks as though I'm being deliberately contrary since the most popular vidding programs - Vegas and Premiere - are nowhere to be seen! I am alone in my dislike of Vegas, it seems, and also weird in that when I finally decided to try ditching out on Windows I didn't jump over to a Mac but tried out Linux instead.

So yeah, first off, I learned different vidding programs.

I also became a lot more confident with cutting music up. That was something I vaguely had planned to learn in the future but never really thought I'd be learning this year. It was surprisingly easy once I found a program I was comfortable using to cut up audio which was, weirdly enough, Pinnacle, even though it's not specifically a music editing program for some reason I get on so much better with it than any other one, when I end up incapable of editing down music without it sounding horribly...jerky.

So yeah, I edited the music (not just using a single section, but properly cutting sections out of a song and stitching each side together again) for Trapdoor Trigger this year which doesn't seem like a lot, but I've also edited down three other songs for future use, two of which I'll definitely be using very shortly, so it feels like I've done more on that front than I actually have.

I've also become more comfortable using effects, which is partly down to that being easier in the programs I've been using. I'm not sure that I want to become an effects-heavy vidder, but I do like knowing that the option is there.

Also, again I know I said that I wasn't going to spend a long time on Battlestar Redactica here, but I think it was a really interesting project for me in terms of a new type of video editing, where the continuity of sound and the overall narrative was really important. Both in Big Picture stuff like the edits themselves when I had to cut out lines of dialogue within scenes while not destroying the ambient music, or working out where I could steal reaction shots from, or where I could paste an "offscreen" piece of dialogue to preserve sense-makingness when I'd cut another line, that sort of thing, and also on a smaller level with the DVD Extras when I was constructing entire AU moments, like Lee declaring his love for Sonja, for instance.

I think this stuff paid off in my actual vidding in various ways but most obviously in the Other Love Quadrangle (No, the Other Other One), which is basically an AU and I'm so pleased that the AU narrative comes across so clearly. I think a large part of that is because I was so used to thinking in terms of how to reappropriate footage for an alternate story.

Things to Work On

I just checked last year's meme and interestingly the three things I had down as things I thought I wouldn't have started working on yet but probably ought to (being less monofannish, editing songs, getting better at working without lyrics [or in this case foreign lyrics]) I've done at least a little this year, while the stuff I had to continue with, I still feel are things I haven't really made all that much progress on, but perhaps it's because they were such nebulous goals (be better at timing, be better at using effects appropriately, don't be lazy!) that they're the sort of things you never achieve, and like your own height and weight, change so slowly you don't really notice until someone else says, "Hey you're taller/fatter/thinner/a better vidder than last time I saw you!"

So...I don't really know. I don't have any specific goals except to keep having fun and get better in that order. I think if I gave myself specific goals whether or not I achieved them would be a complete crapshoot and probably, judging from this last year, I'd achieve all the ones I didn't think I'd achieve...

I guess another goal I would like to say I have is to make something in 2010 that I'm really surprised at myself for making; something I really feel pushes my limits, or some limits or something. Something like there's a war going on for your mind in 2008 or Redactica in 2009. I don't care what it is, but I want to feel the way I felt about both of those, like, "How will I ever top that?! o_O"

Except, currently I really can't imagine how the hell I would, but then, the same was true last year. So I guess I'll throw that out there as a goal, but one that, if I don't manage it, will at least be a reverse-compliment to 2008 and 2009.

If you've made it this far, I'm surprised and impressed.

I love you all.

x

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Redactica was genuinely properly socially important in terms of fans accessing material and turning it into transformative media. Friend of mine who comments on such social trends was super impressed that somebody had done a project like this already, because they figured it would be 5-6 years before the first fan-made projects like that started to arrive.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks, I'm really flattered to hear that. I certainly hope that this sort of thing becomes more frequent in the future and am not really aware of that many other projects like it, but I think that The Phantom Edit deserves the attention it gets as it was one of the first transformative projects via fan editing to get any degree of attention and indeed turned it into a known and more accessible idea for people like me.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Edit)

fanedit.org now provides a large number of edits, though I would note that there are many aesthetic differences between Redactica and the types of edits referenced there. Largely that site has a greater focus on technical quality rather than, necessarily, narrative revision, and indeed the majority of the edits serve to sharpen tone and trim content (indeed one could argue that the same is true of The Phantom Edit, although not all subsequent SW prequel fan edits) rather than to change storylines. Although there are some truly interesting ideas there too - such as a project to turn "Pan's Labyrinth" into two parallel movies - one dark, adult tale with almost none of the fantasy elements and another child-friendly mystical tale. I'm not sure how well it succeeds, as I haven't seen the edit, but it's certainly the sort of idea I wish were more common on that site, rather than yet another edit where all that's been done is adding in the deleted scenes or removing a few bloated ones.

In addition, the site is almost entirely movie-based and I've been hardpressed to find examples of TV edits. The few I did manage to find (on the above site) seemed to be focused around cutting a series of episodes/a season into a single movie rather than - again - amending the narrative.

So, um, sorry - went on a bit of a babble there cus it's an area I find fascinating! But um, what I'm trying to say is yes, I think what I did with Redactica is fairly new in terms of its focus on narrative revision (because even though I didn't spectacularly change everything, even the deletion was focused on revision rather than tonal change), while often fan edits simply seek to improve via, well, better editing rather than a different story, but I don't think I can claim this is the first of its kind either?

But either way, thanks again for your words - I really am pleased to hear that someone who cares about stuff like this was impressed and I hope that he's right and eventually this becomes a more common activity for all of us as technology catches up. And that one day I'll look back and *facepalm* at how primitive the whole thing is because by then we'll have like, holodecks or something! ;)

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

T'was Roz Kaveney btw. Literary/movie critic, writes books like Reading The vampire Slayer and reviews for the Guardian and Times and such. She was really excited about Redactica.

Hadn't heard about the Phantom Edit before, but it makes absolute sense. There were so many lifelong fans who were so disappointed by that movie.

Typical of Lucasarts to have not been keen.

Not sure about re-editing pan's labyrynth... surely the whole point of that film was the contrast between the two stories?

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, cool, I think I've seen her around. If you think she'd like a copy of the DVD set I can send one to her no problem, though I don't want to presume anything, and everything's available on the website anyway, pretty much.

Yeah, the Phantom Edit is pretty iconic and for good reason, though for my money "Balance of the Force" is the better Ep I fan edit - they dub Jar Jar and make him funny! But yes, if anything good came of Ep I it's the fact that it launched this kind of project as a public idea and really spawned a thousand edits itself.

As to the Pan's Labyrinth thing, firstly yes, I do understand your point; I think that the reason I think it's still an interesting idea is twofold - firstly to see if it can be done - it's at least a really ambitious and challenging idea, editing-wise. Secondly because the editor didn't re-edit with the intention - I don't believe - of turning it into two completely separate movies but rather was following the contrast through to its conclusion as an artistic experiment? The films were still intended as a pair, and to exist in contrast with each other? I mean, in this instance, I don't think it's an idea that would work as a replacement for the original movie, but I do think it's an interesting idea even if just to see if it could be done?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Mmm, this whole idea of transformative fan works is fascinating isn't it. I would love to know m ore of how original creators feel about it.

Bit like fanfic. I never understood why so many creators get snotty about fanfic, because to me, I'd be flattered if somebody loved one of my creations enough that they actually wanted to write fiction of their own about it.

Perhaps less so with things like Redactica and Phantom Edit, where fans felt compelled to alter it because the things offered up to us on screen were so god damned awful. But hey.

[chaila.livejournal.com]

I love these! I am always interested in how people feel about their own vids. And though while I understand why you didn’t talk about Redactica extensively here, since it really is like vidding to the nth degree, it should definitely be included as a huge accomplishment and something you're proud of! I’m still pretty awed by the ambitiousness of that project as well as its execution.

Also, I think Gunz Yo deserves lots of appreciation. It is one of my favorites of yours, and I love everything you do as a rule. And I don’t think that’s just because I’m bitter at BSG! I really love the narrative of that vid and it fit so well with your editing style. Plus it's like my favorite kind of vid, both hilarious and poignant.

I will properly watch Heroes of the Empire when I get back to civilization a place with real bandwidth. :)

Three new vidding programs to begin with.

Good lord! Clearly you are not lazy. Once I found a program that didn’t make me tear my hair out when it was time to render and didn’t freeze every 2 seconds, I stuck with it. It just happened to be Vegas. Now I’m not sure what it would take to make me learn a new program but I think your determination must be kind of insane.

think if I gave myself specific goals whether or not I achieved them would be a complete crapshoot

I know! I feel that way too. I can give myself specific goals, but really I’m just going to vid what I want to vid in the way I feel like it should be done, and whether that coincides with my goals or not is pretty much a coincidence. As I was trying to think about what I’d put in my own meme thing, I find I’m mostly thinking ahead about the ideas I already know I want to do and what they will require, and setting those as goals. Maybe goals are for people with discipline or something. Though I am totally impressed that you made a vid to push yourself and learn effects and successfully did so.

Yay vids!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks. And yes, I agree that it's fascinating to hear others' opinions on their own vids. I hope you do the meme when you get back to civilisation a place with real bandwidth!

I'm also glad you understand why I would include Redactica here. It's interesting though, the way your comment has made me think of it. "Vidding to the nth degree," - I think I'd agree in terms of meta/narrative/fannish engagement via video editing, absolutely! But weirdly, and perhaps incorrectly, I'd recently (and perhaps a little self-deprecatingly) been focusing more on the technical differences between fan-editing and vidding rather than the social and intentional similarities? So thanks for reminding me of that.

As to the vidding programs, well...honestly I think it's a series of unusual circumstances more than anything else. I mean, I refused to switch from WMM for like ever (well, okay for two years when I wasn't vidding much and for about 10 months when I was vidding a lot) because I couldn't handle the hassle. But finally the desire for overlays (which are nightmarish in WMM if you need to fade them in and out), which meant a need for multiple track vidding overwhelmed me and I switched. Vegas did crash on me every 2 seconds, so I tried Pinnacle which I really never would have changed from if it not for the quality issue which also made me tear my hair out after that first vid, and BSR was a big enough project I just wasn't willing to "live with it" that way. So okay, the switch from Pinnacle to Ulead was maybe born of some amount of insanity (all right a lot!) but also it really was only because of that same hair-tearing problem that made me switch from WMM, same as you. I just got unlucky and had to do it one extra time.

Cinelerra though, I guess you're right that I didn't have to change for that. That came out of changing OSes and having had some time when I wasn't vidding to read some tutorials I felt able to try it. I do think that having changed so frequently this year also helped - I'd started to notice similarities between Ulead, Pinnacle and even the hated Vegas which made me feel a bit more able to jump into a different program and which honestly helped me with that. So...IT WAS ALL JUST A GIANT ACCIDENT! ;)

Finally, I don't think it's cheating at all to give yourself goals for vids you know you want to make. That's like, the BEST way to do it cus it's the point of goals! Why give yourself goals that you don't particularly think will be helpful to you right now, just for the sake of it? I just don't have any particular plans for future vids where I know I'll need to do x. Though I wish I did!

Also I should confess, my latest vid was nowhere near that planned out "goal"-wise. My original plan to "push myself" was just to vid more non-BSG stuff and I was scared to do TSCC because it's SO narrativey and I didn't know it well enough. Then I was watching the Clone Wars cartoon and was like, "this is really pretty and the animation is such that I bet I could do loads of time-toggles and really synch it with music." So than I thought, HMMM, what a good excuse to do a show where a) I don't have to worry about narrative cus it doesn't have one and b) do an action vid cus I haven't done one of those before. It wasn't so much a specific goal as the vid bunny arrived and the chance presented itself. The larger use of effects was only ever PLANNED to be larger use of time toggles. But when I ended up doing it in Cinelerra and had read something about "masks", I thought I'd try it and ended up liking it and THEN the chance to be more "effecty" dropped itself in my lap. (All the effects are moving/shape-changing masks). Soooo, while I'm totally impressed with myself that I managed to make an actiony-effectsy vid (and yay, I'm glad it's successful!), it wasn't some cunning goal-oriented master plan.

I DENY HAVING A PLAN! NO PLANS AND NO DISCIPLINE! :p

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the excuse to go back and watch some of these (and download onto "my" "new" computer.) :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! And *glee* that you think they're worth downloading.

Hooray for "new" computers that are "yours"! :D

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

I love reading people's vid thoughts even though I don't always know what to say in response. :-)

I really enjoyed what you did with Redactica. Others at the time talked about reclaiming the show but you really redid the whole ending. I like to think or hope that those of us who reclaimed it in our way gained some peace and held on to the part of the show that we loved. I hope so anyway.

On a completely unrelated note. I never did tell you. The puppets with Laura on the DVD extras? I giggles SO HARD. 'Laura!' Clearly you had a ball doing those extras. Keep having a ball, Becca!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Me too! So thanks for reading mine.

And thanks for always taking the time to leave feedback and I'm so glad that you enjoyed Redactica. I only wish that we all had more footage so we could all do it again and bigger and better for each other forever. <3

There does seem to be a big surge of 4.5 AU stuff though and that's been interesting.

I'm also so glad that you enjoyed the DVD extras! Laura the Lobster did seem to be everyone's favourite! (And yeah, we had a great time doing that; I couldn't keep a straight face - you can hear me cracking up in the background...) ;)

You keep having a ball too!

PICKLES!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Holy Six in a red dress, You had a really solid year overall. I <# your vids. I want to go back and watch them all again and then likely fail at leaving proper feedback that isn't in 140 characters on twitter.

I'll soon play in the BSRverse, if I don't get sick of BSG again and go after it in the night with a pair of dull scissors.

I think it's awesome that you're using a new program, which sounds cool from what you've told me about. I'm sure you'll make it your bitch soon enough.

Re: PICKLES!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

140 character twitter feedback is also love. <# And thanks, I did have a pretty good year actually, which I wasn't expecting after my explosion of vidding last year. Though you had a pretty good year too for all your claims of being emo - just read your meme and will reply sooooon!

Re: BSG/BSR. 1) OMFGYAY! That would be soooo exciting, but 2) honestly the fact you just said that made my day so even if you never do it, I'm grinnin' 3) if you get sick of BSG again and go after it in the night with a pair of dull scissors, can you film it so I can watch later? :D

The new program is pretty neat and interesting, although also, it has to be said, ugly as hell and very confusing at times. I'm not sure I'll ever make it my bitch, but I'm at least turning out vids with it that I'm happy with, so I call that a win!

Re: PICKLES!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

While doing the meme I was amazed that I had a "better" year than last. I thought I was a pile of suck in 2009.

I'm still slowly working on thearchive2 challenges. I'm committed to finishing Rise, the collab, and the last challenge for the first set. After that I'm not sure I'll be doing anymore BSG stuff until all the scissors are taken away.

New programs FTW!

Re: PICKLES!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm definitely glad I finished tharchive2 stuff once over before 4.fail. But I do miss your audio-enhanced stories! <3

I look forward to ALL those projects. And yes, the collab really does need to get finished, cus it'll rock and be a really interesting experience, I think?

As someone else stuck in a pile of suck in 2009, maybe that like, helps? Vidding as distraction/therapy?

Re: PICKLES!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I still have fics I haven't finished because 4.5 made me so freaking defeated that not even a ficlet could come forth. I had them all planned out too.

I'll probably pick your brain for help on the last challenge (5) because I can't decide if my idea is lame or awesome, like usual.

Vidding is excellent therapy.

Re: PICKLES!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

You're ALWAYS welcome to pick my brain! :D

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

YAY FOR YOU. <#

did you see there's a new linux editor? probably more akin to WMM than Cinelarra, but it might be worth checking out.

hopefully I'll get to some of those 2010 vids today...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

\o/

I actually already have OpenShot! :D The reason is, Cinelerra looked so confusing and intimidating I tried just about everything else (at least a five minute try-out; nothing fancy) before I bit the bullet and went with Cinelerra.

Basically, yes, OpenShot is more like WMM but also better than WMM if only because it has extra tracks. Though, like kdenlive (another open source video editor), it has issues with doing overlays and fading in and out of them and stuff that make it frustrating even *though* they did at least give you the option of multiple tracks (WMM's srs shortcoming).

There are actually a fair few linux editors - there's also Pitivi (though it's in very early stages and there really aren't any effects plugins), LiVES (though it's got SUCH a weird layout I couldn't wrap my head around it, plus it's largely designed for VJing on the fly) and Open Movie Editor (which is like OpenShot in that it's functional and clearly laid out but still reasonably basic).

The reason I still have OpenShot on my machine is that for all Cinelerra's functionality, it's not always easy to get it to do what you want. Often it gives you the basic effects needed to achieve a complex effect but not a shortcut to those complex effects. For instance, if I wanted to do a shaky-camera effect, I'd need to use the "translate" effect and physically keyframe the shot to move from left to right every frame or so. Similarly if I wanted a sepia tone, I'd need to play with the hue and saturation levels. Or, it has a "flash" transition (like a flashback effect), but it's extremely basic and just fades in and out of white; anything more fancy you'd need to use a straight dissolve transition and then add the flare yourself with keyframed brightness/contrast levels.

Plus, the most heinous crime of all! It only has one "old film" effect which is not customisable in the slightest and looks REALLY crappy.

So basically I kept OpenShot on there because it has a bunch of really basic effects that I probably will never use, but you never know and if I want to use them, it'll be easier to use it to effect the clip than fiddle around for hours trying to get Cinelerra to spoof it?

Um. /random huge rant!

The point is, yes! I have that program! It's awesome! Yay for me, and I'm always excited for your thoughts on 2010 vids, but as always, no hurry. :*