2012 End-of-Year Vidding Meme
Dec. 26th, 2012 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jetpack_monkey_ljarchiveVids I made this year, by date of posting
Previous years (that I did this meme):
2011
January
Eye of the Tiger (A Knight's Tale)
Home (Jigoku)
Mean Woman Blues (Once a Thief (TV))
TiK ToK (Cemetery Man)
June
The Song is Over (Horror multi)
August
The Godzilla Saga (Godzilla)
Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, et al.)
Real Wild Child (Lost Girl)
September
The Jolly Green Avenger (Toxic) (The Toxic Avenger)
Also, I finally put my Tank Girl vid from 2011 on the Internet in September.
Wow. I made NINE vids this year. That's a personal best.
My favorite video this year (of my own):
Probably Home. I've had that vid in my brain for years now. I'm so grateful for Festivids, which forced me to make the vid that was possible instead of the vid in my head. It turned out marvelously -- creepy and ridiculous and thinky. Andabsolutedestiny , the recipient, seemed to dig it.
My least favorite video this year:
Real Wild Child. I botched this one, plain and simple. The version online now is *much* better than the one I submitted to Vividcon, even though I only made a few changes. I thought I would be clever and put together a last minute Premiere on the day they were due (because it had worked out reasonably well last year). I was taken to task in Vid Review and it was totally deserved. In the future, I'm going to show a lot more respect to Premieres in terms of time and effort put into it.
Most successful video:
Martin Scorsese, no question. I have never had such an overwhelmingly positive reaction to a vid, and largely from people who I respect the hell out of. It was a weird concept that somehow managed to work and it remains a very rewatchable vid, even for me.
Video most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
The Godzilla Saga. Once again I did a large canon historical trope-exploring vid for Club Vivid and it just feels like it didn't come off for anyone else. I suspect the song choice was just... wrong, at least for the venue. I love the hell out of the vid and it has *all* of my Godzilla feelings in it, but like my James Bond vid before it, it just kind of sailed on into the night without remark.
Most fun video:
TiK ToK. Ke$ha and zombies! Half-naked Rupert Everett! Snowglobes! Also, I barely knew the recipient,thirdblindmouse , at the time, but now we're actually very good friends. And friends are the most fun!
Video with single sexiest moment:
Mean Woman Blues is just a giant pile of D/s hotness. The Director/leather OTP. The Director/Mac/handcuffs OT3!
Biggest vid fail:
I spent weeks, perhaps months, clipping Bashir/O'Brien footage for an Escapade vid. However, I didn't have a song I was 100% happy with, so I clipped for a lot of possible approaches and eventualities (basically, everything I thought I might be able to use). I ended up with something like 800 clip files, which overloaded my new install of Final Cut Pro X (the program most likely to be useful in organizing said clips). Now I'm going to have to go through and organize the clips I have in a spreadsheet or database before I even start vidding, which could be another month or so of work. And I'm still iffy on my song.
Hardest video to make:
Probably The Song is Over, in terms of sheer amount of source. There are clips from 200 different horror films in there (see if you can list all of them), from the extremely popular to the extremely obscure. You should have seen the stacks of DVDs I had. I did most of that work back in 2009, though, when I put together the original draft of that sucker. In many ways, it is a 2009 vid rather than a 2012 one, since I made only minor changes to the existing draft before releasing it into the wild.
There's an additional emotional component to the vid, in that I made it during a time when I thought I was going to be shutting down my horror movie website and then I released it when I really did shut it down. I wish it was clearer about my feelings about the horror genre, its history, and its lamentable direction, but there's always another vid.
Most unintentionally telling video:
Home, in a lot of ways, revealed ways my brain works that I wasn't aware of. Other people pointed out that the song was dissonant (in a good way) with the source and that the vid was wacky and kind of cracked out. I didn't see it at all, originally. I thought I was making a completely serious-face vid with deep meaning with a song that was entirely appropriate. I guess, in my world, where humor is never very far, I kind of was.
The things I've learned this year:
Music -- Finding it and matching it to source. This isn't as apparent in the vids above, because it's a lesson I took to heart after this year's Vividcon, but you'll see it in my Festivids. I used to decide I wanted to make a vid for a fandom and then struggle to find a song that sort of matched from my limited musical knowledge. Now I consume music voraciously, buying up $5 albums from Amazon's MP3 shop and downloading remixes and mash-ups whenever possible. I keep lists of both music that I could make a vid from and music that I have matched to a potential source.
Passion -- If you have two vid ideas (with source length, song difficulty, and familiarity with source and song being equal), the vid idea that you are passionate about will go faster and be much more fun, even if it's technically the same amount of work as an idea that you're only sort of into.
Effort -- I actually have people watching my vids now. I should respect them and myself enough to put a strong effort into every vid and not just toss something off at the last minute so I can say I had something in a particular show. If I don't have a vid for Premieres, it's not a big crime and I will have done everyone a service by saving my energies for another vid for another time.
Productivity -- Conversely, the more I vid, the more I learn about vidding. I learned twice as much from my mistakes this year -- strong, actionable lessons -- than I did from my successes.
For 2013:
I honestly think 2013 is going to be a big year for me. I have some really interesting vids planned (or already made in terms of two Festivids vids). I plan on hitting Vividcon with all rockets firing and really pushing myself in terms of technique, musicality, and narrative. I don't think I could have come to this point as a vidder without the amazing community and I plan on doing more in terms of volunteering at Vividcon, running panels, and putting together vidshows.
Previous years (that I did this meme):
2011
January
Eye of the Tiger (A Knight's Tale)
Home (Jigoku)
Mean Woman Blues (Once a Thief (TV))
TiK ToK (Cemetery Man)
June
The Song is Over (Horror multi)
August
The Godzilla Saga (Godzilla)
Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, et al.)
Real Wild Child (Lost Girl)
September
The Jolly Green Avenger (Toxic) (The Toxic Avenger)
Also, I finally put my Tank Girl vid from 2011 on the Internet in September.
Wow. I made NINE vids this year. That's a personal best.
My favorite video this year (of my own):
Probably Home. I've had that vid in my brain for years now. I'm so grateful for Festivids, which forced me to make the vid that was possible instead of the vid in my head. It turned out marvelously -- creepy and ridiculous and thinky. And
absolutedestiny , the recipient, seemed to dig it. My least favorite video this year:
Real Wild Child. I botched this one, plain and simple. The version online now is *much* better than the one I submitted to Vividcon, even though I only made a few changes. I thought I would be clever and put together a last minute Premiere on the day they were due (because it had worked out reasonably well last year). I was taken to task in Vid Review and it was totally deserved. In the future, I'm going to show a lot more respect to Premieres in terms of time and effort put into it.
Most successful video:
Martin Scorsese, no question. I have never had such an overwhelmingly positive reaction to a vid, and largely from people who I respect the hell out of. It was a weird concept that somehow managed to work and it remains a very rewatchable vid, even for me.
Video most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
The Godzilla Saga. Once again I did a large canon historical trope-exploring vid for Club Vivid and it just feels like it didn't come off for anyone else. I suspect the song choice was just... wrong, at least for the venue. I love the hell out of the vid and it has *all* of my Godzilla feelings in it, but like my James Bond vid before it, it just kind of sailed on into the night without remark.
Most fun video:
TiK ToK. Ke$ha and zombies! Half-naked Rupert Everett! Snowglobes! Also, I barely knew the recipient,
thirdblindmouse , at the time, but now we're actually very good friends. And friends are the most fun!Video with single sexiest moment:
Mean Woman Blues is just a giant pile of D/s hotness. The Director/leather OTP. The Director/Mac/handcuffs OT3!
Biggest vid fail:
I spent weeks, perhaps months, clipping Bashir/O'Brien footage for an Escapade vid. However, I didn't have a song I was 100% happy with, so I clipped for a lot of possible approaches and eventualities (basically, everything I thought I might be able to use). I ended up with something like 800 clip files, which overloaded my new install of Final Cut Pro X (the program most likely to be useful in organizing said clips). Now I'm going to have to go through and organize the clips I have in a spreadsheet or database before I even start vidding, which could be another month or so of work. And I'm still iffy on my song.
Hardest video to make:
Probably The Song is Over, in terms of sheer amount of source. There are clips from 200 different horror films in there (see if you can list all of them), from the extremely popular to the extremely obscure. You should have seen the stacks of DVDs I had. I did most of that work back in 2009, though, when I put together the original draft of that sucker. In many ways, it is a 2009 vid rather than a 2012 one, since I made only minor changes to the existing draft before releasing it into the wild.
There's an additional emotional component to the vid, in that I made it during a time when I thought I was going to be shutting down my horror movie website and then I released it when I really did shut it down. I wish it was clearer about my feelings about the horror genre, its history, and its lamentable direction, but there's always another vid.
Most unintentionally telling video:
Home, in a lot of ways, revealed ways my brain works that I wasn't aware of. Other people pointed out that the song was dissonant (in a good way) with the source and that the vid was wacky and kind of cracked out. I didn't see it at all, originally. I thought I was making a completely serious-face vid with deep meaning with a song that was entirely appropriate. I guess, in my world, where humor is never very far, I kind of was.
The things I've learned this year:
Music -- Finding it and matching it to source. This isn't as apparent in the vids above, because it's a lesson I took to heart after this year's Vividcon, but you'll see it in my Festivids. I used to decide I wanted to make a vid for a fandom and then struggle to find a song that sort of matched from my limited musical knowledge. Now I consume music voraciously, buying up $5 albums from Amazon's MP3 shop and downloading remixes and mash-ups whenever possible. I keep lists of both music that I could make a vid from and music that I have matched to a potential source.
Passion -- If you have two vid ideas (with source length, song difficulty, and familiarity with source and song being equal), the vid idea that you are passionate about will go faster and be much more fun, even if it's technically the same amount of work as an idea that you're only sort of into.
Effort -- I actually have people watching my vids now. I should respect them and myself enough to put a strong effort into every vid and not just toss something off at the last minute so I can say I had something in a particular show. If I don't have a vid for Premieres, it's not a big crime and I will have done everyone a service by saving my energies for another vid for another time.
Productivity -- Conversely, the more I vid, the more I learn about vidding. I learned twice as much from my mistakes this year -- strong, actionable lessons -- than I did from my successes.
For 2013:
I honestly think 2013 is going to be a big year for me. I have some really interesting vids planned (or already made in terms of two Festivids vids). I plan on hitting Vividcon with all rockets firing and really pushing myself in terms of technique, musicality, and narrative. I don't think I could have come to this point as a vidder without the amazing community and I plan on doing more in terms of volunteering at Vividcon, running panels, and putting together vidshows.
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