Vid: Not Afraid Anymore [Resident Evil films, Alice/Claire]
Weeellllll... long time, no post I'm afraid. :\ I'm actually writing this from my Vividcon hotel room (yes, back at VVC after a mere 9 years away!), and I submitted this vid to the Nearly New show, so I realized I should actually make the post for it I've been meaning to make since this vid premiered at TGIFemslash on April 7th. lol. And it's also in celebration of reaching 1K views on YouTube! So if this vid is old news to you, I apologize. ;)
[YouTube link]
[AO3 link]
[Tumblr link]
[Google Drive] - download available
Notes
Thank you to TGIFemslash for giving me an excellent reason to make every femslash vid I've ever wanted to make! ;) Seriously, it is SO FUN to premiere a femslash vid to a room full of femslash lovers, the absolute perfect audience for it. I can only imagine that I will continue to attempt a premiere for this con every year! I'm also in charge of the TGIF/F vidshow, so it's a delight to create that show and have my own work (along with other amazing premieres) be shown in it. <3
You know, I never, ever thought I would make a movie vid. Now that I've popped that cherry, I totally understand why people do it and love it! To be fair, I was working with three movies (out of six in the Resident Evil franchise, the only three to feature Claire), but oh my GOD it was so much easier than vidding a TV show! The limited source made this a perfect project for my first vidding project in three years, as it was much less stressful and intimidating from a source perspective.
There was a little stress in the fact that the final movie had just been in theaters and would not be released for several more months. I knew I'd most likely be working with cam footage when I started this project, something that was a last resort but I was so far down the Alice/Claire rabbit hole at this point that I NEEDED to make this, no matter what. I got a cam rip and even learned how to crop out the subtitles on the footage, since the best rip had hardcoded Chinese subs. I'm still pretty proud of teaching myself how to do that (I'd never cropped footage in any way before), even if it ended up not being needed. I made this vid chronologically in the sense that I vidded RE: Extinction first, in the first section of the song, followed by RE: Afterlife in the middle and closing out with RE: The Final Chapter. Each section was completed (minus some minor tweaks) before I started the next one. By the time I had reached the third section and cropped my cam rip, I noticed very nice gifsets of the last movie popping up on Tumblr. I ran to check my torrent sites, and lo and behold, a leaked DVD rip had been uploaded only a day earlier. I was so pleased and couldn't believe my good luck that I'd be able to use nice-looking footage. The hilarious flipside of this is that since I assumed I'd be using a cam rip, I actually downloaded lesser quality versions of the other two movies in hopes that they would at least match up with the cam footage better. LOL. The result is that the size and quality of the finished product isn't amazing, but I still think it looks OK and smaller files are usually easier for my old (circa 2011) laptop to edit.
In other technical notes, I used Magix Movie Edit Pro 2013 once again, and even with a few little technical issues it really is great software to use. (My OS is Windows 7 64-bit with 8GB RAM.) It never crashed or froze, and I find the controls to be very intuitive and easy to use. Plus it only cost me $50. I also used Avidemux for file/codec conversions - it works with MKVs! This vid took me about two months to make, which felt like the perfect amount of time -- long enough that I had time to make the vid I wanted to make (I even finished a whole week before my deadline!), but short enough that I was very motivated to try to work on it every day. I really got into a groove making this vid that I have never felt before or since and can only hope that I discover again. This is the first vid I've made where I honestly, sincerely looked forward to working on it every evening. I've certainly enjoyed making my other vids once I'm in it, but I couldn't say I always looked forward to opening those project files. This one was a joy in every way.
I have the source and the ship to thank for a lot of that joy as well -- of course, femslash subtext ships are my niche, aren't they? ;) I have the most fun vidding when I am arguing for / constructing a ship that isn't canon. There is nothing better in vidding than taking clips out of context and making things that weren't gay extremely gay. It is so fucking satisfying. In fact, my favorite part of this vid is at 0:40 - 1:00; putting all that together and creating new femslashy context was so rewarding. XD Of course, the later sections are all in context, which is also amazing because yes, these movies really ARE that gay and yes, Alice and Claire really are the only survivors and ride off into the sunset together. <3 I fell very hard and very fast for this ship, and was surprised to find a small but active fanbase for them! (There's some great stuff on Tumblr and AO3 if you are so inclined.) Making this vid was such a fulfilling way of channeling my intense shipper feels. :)
On a closing note, I would HIGHLY recommend the Resident Evil movie franchise if you are into woman-led action/horror movies with surprisingly little male gaze and a surprisingly high amount of queer subtext. Every movie passes the Bechdel test well, and (spoiler?) literally every male love interest that Alice and Claire have in the franchise dies, leaving them with each other. And I mean, they always had the best chemistry anyway. ;) Once you're sold (hopefully my vid helped with that!), I have two amazing Alice/Claire fic recs: The Weirdest Thing I Want by
seriousfic and Strange and Beautiful by
fembuck. This entry was originally posted at https://beerbad.dreamwidth.org/383347.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Click to view[YouTube link]
[AO3 link]
[Tumblr link]
[Google Drive] - download available
Notes
Thank you to TGIFemslash for giving me an excellent reason to make every femslash vid I've ever wanted to make! ;) Seriously, it is SO FUN to premiere a femslash vid to a room full of femslash lovers, the absolute perfect audience for it. I can only imagine that I will continue to attempt a premiere for this con every year! I'm also in charge of the TGIF/F vidshow, so it's a delight to create that show and have my own work (along with other amazing premieres) be shown in it. <3
You know, I never, ever thought I would make a movie vid. Now that I've popped that cherry, I totally understand why people do it and love it! To be fair, I was working with three movies (out of six in the Resident Evil franchise, the only three to feature Claire), but oh my GOD it was so much easier than vidding a TV show! The limited source made this a perfect project for my first vidding project in three years, as it was much less stressful and intimidating from a source perspective.
There was a little stress in the fact that the final movie had just been in theaters and would not be released for several more months. I knew I'd most likely be working with cam footage when I started this project, something that was a last resort but I was so far down the Alice/Claire rabbit hole at this point that I NEEDED to make this, no matter what. I got a cam rip and even learned how to crop out the subtitles on the footage, since the best rip had hardcoded Chinese subs. I'm still pretty proud of teaching myself how to do that (I'd never cropped footage in any way before), even if it ended up not being needed. I made this vid chronologically in the sense that I vidded RE: Extinction first, in the first section of the song, followed by RE: Afterlife in the middle and closing out with RE: The Final Chapter. Each section was completed (minus some minor tweaks) before I started the next one. By the time I had reached the third section and cropped my cam rip, I noticed very nice gifsets of the last movie popping up on Tumblr. I ran to check my torrent sites, and lo and behold, a leaked DVD rip had been uploaded only a day earlier. I was so pleased and couldn't believe my good luck that I'd be able to use nice-looking footage. The hilarious flipside of this is that since I assumed I'd be using a cam rip, I actually downloaded lesser quality versions of the other two movies in hopes that they would at least match up with the cam footage better. LOL. The result is that the size and quality of the finished product isn't amazing, but I still think it looks OK and smaller files are usually easier for my old (circa 2011) laptop to edit.
In other technical notes, I used Magix Movie Edit Pro 2013 once again, and even with a few little technical issues it really is great software to use. (My OS is Windows 7 64-bit with 8GB RAM.) It never crashed or froze, and I find the controls to be very intuitive and easy to use. Plus it only cost me $50. I also used Avidemux for file/codec conversions - it works with MKVs! This vid took me about two months to make, which felt like the perfect amount of time -- long enough that I had time to make the vid I wanted to make (I even finished a whole week before my deadline!), but short enough that I was very motivated to try to work on it every day. I really got into a groove making this vid that I have never felt before or since and can only hope that I discover again. This is the first vid I've made where I honestly, sincerely looked forward to working on it every evening. I've certainly enjoyed making my other vids once I'm in it, but I couldn't say I always looked forward to opening those project files. This one was a joy in every way.
I have the source and the ship to thank for a lot of that joy as well -- of course, femslash subtext ships are my niche, aren't they? ;) I have the most fun vidding when I am arguing for / constructing a ship that isn't canon. There is nothing better in vidding than taking clips out of context and making things that weren't gay extremely gay. It is so fucking satisfying. In fact, my favorite part of this vid is at 0:40 - 1:00; putting all that together and creating new femslashy context was so rewarding. XD Of course, the later sections are all in context, which is also amazing because yes, these movies really ARE that gay and yes, Alice and Claire really are the only survivors and ride off into the sunset together. <3 I fell very hard and very fast for this ship, and was surprised to find a small but active fanbase for them! (There's some great stuff on Tumblr and AO3 if you are so inclined.) Making this vid was such a fulfilling way of channeling my intense shipper feels. :)
On a closing note, I would HIGHLY recommend the Resident Evil movie franchise if you are into woman-led action/horror movies with surprisingly little male gaze and a surprisingly high amount of queer subtext. Every movie passes the Bechdel test well, and (spoiler?) literally every male love interest that Alice and Claire have in the franchise dies, leaving them with each other. And I mean, they always had the best chemistry anyway. ;) Once you're sold (hopefully my vid helped with that!), I have two amazing Alice/Claire fic recs: The Weirdest Thing I Want by
seriousfic and Strange and Beautiful by
fembuck. This entry was originally posted at https://beerbad.dreamwidth.org/383347.html. Please comment there using OpenID.