Vidding Meme! :D

[beccatoria]

Shamelessly stolen from frayadjacent and chaila! Give me a number (or a few) and I will try to answer things! Some numbers are missing because my intelligent predecessors went through combing for questions they didn't think they'd be so interested in, but I'm, um, lazy, so I just copy-pasted one of their lists and ran with it. YAY ME.

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-vid.
2. Is there a genre or style you've yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
3. Is there a genre or style you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole?
4. How many vid ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
5. Share one of your strengths.
6. Share one of your weaknesses.
7. Point to a section from one of your favorite vids you've made and explain why you're proud of it.
8. Which vid was the hardest to make?
9. Which vid was the easiest to make?
11. Is there a section of canon above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?
12. What's the best vidding advice you've ever come across?
13. What's the worst vidding advice you've ever come across?
14. If you only could vid one show/movie for the rest of your life, which show/movie would it be?
15. Do you work mostly from start to finish, or do you vid sections out of order?
16. Do you use any tools, like clip notes or storyboards?
18. Describe your perfect vidding conditions.
19. How many times do you usually revise your vid before posting?
20. Choose a section from one of your earlier vids and talk about whether and how you'd do it differently now. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).
21. If you were to revise one of your older vids from start to finish, which would it be and why?
22. Have you ever deleted one of your published vids?
23. What do you look for in a beta?
24. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?
25. How do you feel about collaborations?
26. Share three of your favorite vidders and why you like them so much.
27. Do you accept prompts?
28. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your vids being canon compliant?
30. How do you feel about crack?
31. Which is your favorite site for posting vids?
32. Talk about your current vids in progress.
33. Talk about a comment or review that made your day.
34. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

Comments

[chaila]

7 & 14! Also 21! And maybe 33. :) all the questions!

[beccatoria]

ALL THE QUESTIONS. ACTUALLY ALL OF THEM. :p

7. Point to a section from one of your favorite vids you've made and explain why you're proud of it.

Hmmm, okay I'd probably give a different answer on any given day, but today let's talk about i say fever - my Farscape vid. From about 1:20 to about 1:55, because there are a whole lot of things in that section that I'm quite proud of but goes - by design - unnoticed. And usually I'm more flashy in my effects. So now I will brag. Firstly I just love how well I feel I managed to capture the tone of the coin toss scene. In some ways this feels like cheating; one of the things I like is that it really just feels like that scene set to music and in that sense, maybe I should praise the original cinematography, not my butchering of it. And I do - the actors are so fantastic. But sue me, I really love that I managed to let that entire 5+ second shot of them ~negotiating not kissing~ play out without it - in my opinion - feeling lazy, poorly timed, boring...

So yeah, the first part I just love how I managed to work with the beats of that scene - to bring out the captivating physicality of the actors. To highlight their acting choices (Aeryn stares at the coin; John stares at Aeryn; I flail). Just...to let it be.

Then the next section, only Farscape-vidding dorks probably noticed, but several times those drug-flashbacks John had to earlier seasons? WERE IN THE WRONG ASPECT RATIO. Like in the official broadcast version of the show. Because they were using shots from seasons 1 - 3 which were in 4:3, while the fourth season was in 16:9 and they just fucking STRETCHED THEM because, I guess, they figured no one would notice because they were going by so fast. So the first thing I did was fix that. Then I constructed an entirely new drug-hallucination-sequence because none of them were longer and there were snatches of image I wanted to use. Complete with opaque-pale-overlay-filter thing so it looked the same as the one before.

THEN I had to cut the audio from a really loud bit to a really quiet bit, which fortunately there was precedent for in the song itself, but it was still dicey and I'm glad I managed it as well as I did.

But I also added some blur/lack of focus to the shots of John snorting drugs that came immediately on that moment both to subliminally distract from (or maybe fit with) the sudden audio shift (if you really listen closely it's not perfect) and also to like...add a sense of bleariness to the whole thing. The image needed something other than just staring at John but not cutting away from him because we'd just quieted/slowed down. Since the intention of those blurs is not to be flashy but to like...smooth a transition, I have always sort of wondered if people notice that I did it or if it just sails by as part of the ambiance?

Anyway, essay over. There is a list of many small, intentionally low key things. ;)

14. If you only could vid one show/movie for the rest of your life, which show/movie would it be?

Ugh, I don't know and that makes me kind of sad. I miss having a primary show. Once upon a time, no questions, it would have been BSG, but...that's not true anymore. At the moment my favourite show is probably Sleepy Hollow, but with one season, am I willing to pick it as my one and only? I think I'm likely to have a serious fannish relationship with Mass Effect for a long time, so that's another contender, but it's limiting in terms of the way its source is organised/visualised/how much of it there is as compared to the wider story. I just watched Avatar: the Last Airbender and I haven't vidded it at all but it's gorgeous visuals makes me want to like crazy and I'm sure there are a ton of vids I could get out of it...

It's probably due in large part to having chosen the vid I did for the last question, but I actually think I'd pick Farscape. Because it fostered my original pre-vidding love of vids. Because it's huge and versatile and I know the show really well and I always meant to make a million vids, I just never did because BSG stole me away and then TSCC did, and then, well, I guess I'd moved on. But...if I had to pick one thing, I think Farscape is one of the shows I could keep going back to, even if I think, without being stuck in some draconian "one vidding show only!" reality, I'm unlikely to do so in any serious way.

21. If you were to revise one of your older vids from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Aaaah, wow, difficult question. I think the boring answer is that I wouldn't. I think when I'm done with something, I'm done with it. I'm not sure I'd ever want to re-vid something, but better, even if I knew I could, for the same reason I can't bring myself to lock all the vids I don't like so much anymore. I just...I did it. It's out there now. It's done with. I need to keep moving forwards.

Of course I also don't believe in absolutes, so I'm sure some day I'll be sat here retooling all my favourite vids being like I SAID WHAT NOW when you bring this up.

But that's my instinct.

In terms of remastering, though - I do have vague intentions, when/if I ever get better source, to remaster Machine (Mass Effect) with HD footage just because it frustrated me I couldn't do it at the time. I've never remastered a vid, though, so who knows if I'll give up in frustration. And I do just intend to remaster, not rework sections.

33. Talk about a comment or review that made your day.

NO DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE AMONGST MY CHILDREN!

Okay, well, let's choose then. At least in general terms. I think what really moves me and makes me feel grateful is some sense of connection. Sometimes that's easier with vids that have rare sources because when someone who's SEEN IT and GETS THE VID shows up, it's just great. But also, I think the vid where I got the most gratification out of the feedback I received was probably my first Mass Effect vid. Not the crowdpleasing every-Shepard vid (much though I love that, and much though I was touched by the emotional feedback I received), but the cyborg-messiah Shepard-is-a-Machine vid. I released it fairly soon after the backlash against the ending, and man, that was something I was emotionally invested in. Seeing people understand what I was saying, and a few of them even understanding it better than they had before, like...feeling as though I had managed to communicate this thing I loved, that I felt was misunderstood... And that people heard and went, OH, you mean that? Wow. Yeah. Yeah I get it now...

Yeah, that made my day. Probably because I felt it was part of a genuine meta conversation in a way I don't think my vids have gotten to be all that often since the um, unfortunate BSG situation.

[chaila]

Ugh i say fever is so beautiful, even though your Farscape vids also make me wish I knew/remembered Farscape better!

I think Farscape is one of the shows I could keep going back to, even if I think, without being stuck in some draconian "one vidding show only!" reality, I'm unlikely to do so in any serious way.

Interesting how this works! I feel similarly, like I feel done with TSCC finally, but also if I had to vid only one thing forever, I'd still pick it. It's rare to have something that you *could* stick with forever, if you wanted to. Though for the record, I'd always love more Farscape vids from you if you ever felt moved in that direction. :)

I felt it was part of a genuine meta conversation

Ugh I miss this too, a lot. But that ME vid was gorgeous, and I didn't even grasp all the nuances of the meta and fandom meta/conversation, etc. Vids > words so often for me now, which is interesting. Partly I think it feels safer, and partly it actually feels more *effective*.