End of Year Vidding Meme: 2009
Dec. 28th, 2009 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaSo, 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cyborganize, heyiya and metatxt as a gift for kiki_miserychic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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 fordaybreak777's itty-bitty-viddy-ficcy-thon.
7 - BSG 20 Second Vidlet: The Night Made fordaybreak777's itty-bitty-viddy-ficcy-thon.
7 - BSG 20 Second Vidlet: When the President Talks to God Made fordaybreak777'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
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
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 04:18 pm (UTC)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?
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 04:25 pm (UTC)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.