Eunice

Almost Vividcon means navel gazing about vidding!
( blather behind the cut )

It is day before Who day! And since I have all my uploads done for VVC and sisabet and I are making fabulous progress on the I Suck panel, I have no stress so I can just enjoy. NEW WHO TOMORROW. Which based on the promo is simply not capable of failing me. Seriously, the actual plot could be 'The only way to save the universe is by reading the phone book' and I would not care. The minimum required to put me in a state of blissful squee has already been acheived. Anything else is bonus.

Also, now that I'm free to work on my pile of half finished vids, I think I'm going to try and get the Torchwood ones knocked out and cleared off first. They are the least likely to get finished if delayed, and I do want to. I know I definitely want to get the darker meta vid which has no hugs and no main Torchwood characters, which hardly anyone but me will be interested in, because it will be a challenge and I want to see if I can make it be what I wanted to make.

Since the source pool is the same I will be working on two at once, though, and I am torn. Do I make the second active project Ianto discovering his inner Dolly Parton, or the serious business Jack/Death vid filled with whangst and woe? Cracky lightness would make a good counterpoint for the depressing other vid, but I'm not sure I'm in a cracky mood. Maybe I'll pull all three projects up and see which one makes the most progress.

I should probably clean my house before I do anything.

OMG NEW WHO TOMORROW OMG.

What are you guys up to? Anything exciting or interesting?

I haven't blathered about vidding in awhile, have I? I sort of feel like blathering about vidding.

I think, for all the bells and whistles and gadgets offered up by FCP, my absolute and forever favorite tool of them all remains the humble razor. More than anything else, to me, it is the fundamental backbone of non-linear editing. Take the most basic scene of two characters simply exchanging meaningful glances. Put the razor tool in my hand and suddenly I control which one looks first and for how long they look. Out of that ten seconds is the important information contained in the second with the head tilt or the one with the sigh or the little smirk? Up to me. That scene is now mine and what it can mean and for who, along with it's overall impact, is entirely up to me. I'm not bound by any structure but my own. That same basic, simple scene can mean a hundred different things depending on who's cutting it and why. I can take three minutes and strip away everything but a critical three seconds and convey mountains of information in whatever order I choose. I can cut together two, or three, or four, or however many scenes I want from entirely different episodes, not limited to a sequential narrative, but as pieces in an emotional whole that can fit in an infinite number of combinations depending on what I want to say. I don't think there is any other aspect of vidding that brings me more satisfaction than a good cut. If I could marry my razor tool, I think I probably would.

If someone were just starting out in vidding and they asked me what they should do first, I'd tell them to take one scene, throw it on the timeline, haul out the razor tool and cut it to pieces. Shuffle the bits around. See how many different ways it fits together. Start over and cut it up again different this time. Decide what's unecessary or distracting from a purely visual perspective and throw it in the trash. Grab another scene, do it again, and see if you can make the two fit together. Discover what is possible and know that the raw footage is only the starting point...because it's yours now. And it can be anything you want it to be.

Eunice/Razor OTP, baby.

Since I can't actually vid at the moment, I'm going to ramble about vidding. And since I'm cranky it's going something that drives me insane when watching vids. It's actually very near the top of the list of things that will cause me to stop watching a vid midway through and not go back. When the music changes in any significant way, so should the vid. I don't know enough music vocabulary to name all the changes, but they happen, and when the vid doesn't shift with them, for me, it sticks out like a sore thumb. The most obvious being when the tempo of the song changes, going from fast to slow or slow to fast, with no corresponding shift in the video. Cut faster when the pace picks up, or choose clips with stronger or more frantic motion, switch to more static reaction shots on a slowdown, or get some swoopy/spinny motion going to reflect the guitar that just came in and started doing a thing, mess with the color, change the mood, narrow in on a specific point to the vid's overall message, I don't care...just do something. If it doesn't sound the same, it shouldn't look the same. And chances are, even in the simplest of songs, it's not going to sound the same all the way through. Verses will sound different to choruses which will sound different from the bridge. Use that. Please.

As always, this is just the way I personally watch and think about vids, YMMV, one person's opinion who is still figuring all this stuff out herself, and for real, feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, wrong, so very wrong in comments...unless you insult my mother while doing it, I'm probably going to dig the conversation.

Everything you never wanted to know about why and what I vid, put behind a cut for easy ignoring,

( that vidding meme, nabbed from pretty much everyone )

I am...struggling with the Owen vid my brain has insisted I at least try to make. But hey, it's all new struggles in my vidding process, so here's the part where you'll find me blathering on about both that and my Owen issues and how they intersect behind the cut,

( long winded navel gazing below )

You know, I'm more than a little disturbed that my last two days in fandom have consisted of me posting vids that included Doctor/Rose to Celine Dion and Ianto Jones busting a move to Young MC. It's like...somewhere my life took a deeply bizzare turn and I'm not sure where. That I can fully lay the blame for these things on other (very EVIL, very BAD) people is a small comfort. I seriously need to go work on that Seven and Ace vid now and salvage something of my tattered dignity. The Kandyman can only be a step up.

However, the Ianto wars have led me to a sad conclusion about my future vid projects. The Emo!Ianto vid is just never going to happen. I missed the moment, and in the wake of S2, despite my deep and pure TRUE LOVE for all things that involve the Emo Face of Ianto, and my belief that he is very much human and needs to be loved, I can no longer fully justify a vid in which all his hope his gone. He's just too damn plucky (and move busty). But I want to vid him. I *really* want to. Must find song for real, one that can incorporate both emo and plucky with a side of mansex.

I also really need to sit down and make plans for all the real life stuff that needs to get done. If I'm moving to the suburbs at the end of April, then I don't have much time to start pulling my shit together if I want to avoid a panic filled frenzy that puts me out of commission for months after. Randomly, I miss Guitar Hero. A lot. I woke up this morning with a strong urge to play it and it was VERY SAD when I realized that I still can't afford to purchase everything...well, not and continue my goal of actually being adult-like and responsible and keeping at least a little bit of cushion against the big trips (VVC and UK) coming up. Especially since I'll be having a car again when I move and all the costs that come with, not to mention, y'know, moving isn't free. But I want it. *throws tantrum*.

Awwwwww, someone gave me virtual chocolates! Thank you anonymous! I hug you and hug you for totally making my day. I am grinning and bouncing :)

I'm settling back in but not quite entirely home in my head yet. That was a really good visit, the downside is that the missing of the kid gets that much more acute right after I have to leave. Also, I do not have Guitar Hero to play anymore. I miss it almost as much as I miss my offspring. Mostly I just need to get back into my normal patterns again. Between people visiting, and me going to MD it's been a majorly disruptive month. Good disruption, but it still knocks me off balance because of the being insane. First up is sorting out vid projects. Prioritizing I think it will go

1. Auction vid for boniblithe, 'cause that one is bought and paid for, and it has a deadline, so to the top of the list it goes. Even if it is a VID OF EVIL.

2. Seven and Ace. I have all the footage I need, and most of the idea worked out...I just have to put in the work of pulling it together. Also, vagabondage threatened to disown me if I didn't finish it.

3. Emo!Ianto. Despite being the vid I most want to work on right now, on account of being all obsessed, my instincts are all saying wait and let this season play out, if not for story back up (because I'm not sure I'm going to get that, not that I care...this vid is not about truth..it's about my love of weepy, scrunchy faced, woobie in pain), but for more visual back up. I can be patient.

4. Possibly the sort of started Ten vid. I'm still not entirely sure on the concept, but I do want to get back in and play with it some more to see if it goes anywhere after stalling almost immediately.

And then mixed in there are two collab projects that I need to get in the game on situated pretty high on the list. If I can pull this all off it will be the most productive few months of vidding I've ever had. Which is good, because I'm thinking more and more that I probably won't have a VVC premiere this year. My lease is up at the end of April and I will probably be moving to a different apartment (not out of Chicago, but to the suburbs), which is going to knock out a huge hunk of time and stress. And I still don't yet have an idea for one that's really moved me into going "Yes, I must show that at VVC this year" Also, I really, really need to vid something that is not Doctor Who related. Really a lot. Not that I don't love vidding DW, or plan to do a lot more of it because it is my happy place. But. Just looking at that list makes me feel like I'm headed for a rut if I don't vary at least a little bit soon.

Next up, figuring out real life, not fannish stuff for the upcoming months. I should probably be concerned that I'm making that list second shouldn't I?

Is Torchwood tonight or tomorrow? And, yay Sarah Connor Chronicles (are we calling it SCC yet so I can stop typing it out? ETA: and it's Sarah Connor not Sarah Jane, my worlds they collide) still has me making squee based flaily hands at it. I appear to be pretty much set with new TV to watch until summer. That is awesome. Right, today's distraction.

Effects in vidding. I need help. Explanations mostly because I still don't get it and it's a bit frustrating not to, especially since the tech available to us is advancing at the speed that it is. My aesthetic preference, both in watching and making vids, has always been for the straight cut and 'invisible' effects (shifting the speed to hit timing marks, adjusting the color, that sort of thing). Really shiny effects might make me go 'ooooh, pretty', but it's a series of well executed and elegant edits that really punch my clock. I've noticed that even in effects heavy vids that blow me away, the thing blowing me away tends to be the underlying edits with the effects giving those a bit of extra oomph. And I can't even figure out how to do that much on vids of my own. So, I'm turning to my peoples with better eyes than me. Explain? What makes an effect work, and what kind of effects tend to best reflect different emotions or purposes or emphasis? I mean, even if I can't yet do it, I can work out how an intercut or a jumpcut communicates it's purpose, where fast or slow cuts can be used to build tension, or how motion should be tied to beats to provoke different reactions. I can at least attempt to manipulate those to directly affect my audience. Effects? I don't know what they do, not in the sense that "I can make the Doctor glow here using these settings", but "What does making the Doctor glow there communicate?"

Halp? Or is this one of those instinctive things that can't really be learned? Also, any recs for good books on learning graphic design, because it's about time I stopped picking up things piecemeal and really made an effort to actually learn that stuff too.

I didn't get a chance to start on the vid drabble projects because I actually left the house. *pauses to let the shock sink in*

It has been an awesome two days. First there was much fun with taraljc and pipsqueaky and aj on New Years Eve rewatching Voyage of the Damned, and Live Free or Die Hard (EXPLOSIONS!), and Hot Fuzz. With snacks! And fannish blather! And then a return to Tara's with Pips today to watch Sarah Jane Adventures. I am a bit wore out by all the not being at home and using vocal cords instead of touch typing to talk to people, but very glad I went.

At some point tomorrow I will finish setting up the project file and start the 24 hour countdown clock on the first insane vid drabble for sweetestdrain, and hopefully the day after that the one for nestra. I'm a bit terrified, but the last time I did this it was really good for me, so I'm looking forward to doing it again.

And now I go faceplant on my bed.