Thistledown Tears ETA, and the vid ideas meme
Several people have asked whether "Thistledown Tears" (the Firefly vid that premiered at VividCon last weekend) is going to be posted online. The answer is yes, but not right away, for a couple of reasons.
First, I'm still tweaking it. I'd specifically wanted to work on color in this vid, which ended up not happening in time for the con; but now the con's over and I'm not on a deadline and can fiddle with it some more.
Second, I just posted the Wonderfalls vid ("Window of Opportunity"), which also premiered at VividCon, and traffic over at paper cup has jumped accordingly. To give you an idea of what that means: my normal site traffic averages out to about 40 unique visitors and 240 MB of bandwidth per day. For the last several days, I've had between 160 and 190 visitors per day, and bandwidth usage has been between 1.2 and 1.6 GB per day. Which is great, but also means that I'd like to let the site traffic settle back to normal before posting another new vid. If the traffic patterns that followed the posting of "Cat Scan Hist'ry" are any indication, it'll take at least another week for things to taper off.
And now, a bit about the projects I've got on tap...
I've organized these by show, more or less in the order in which I intend to work on them. Also, I've been deliberately coy about song choice for most of these, because I don't want folks second-guessing them, or getting their hands on songs they wouldn't otherwise know about before I've surprised them with the vid. *g*
Farscape
The Women Of Farscape vid, to the song that is going to knock the socks off everybody who doesn't instantly hate it. I will feel really sorry for the people who hate it, because it's fantastic.
The Dark And Fucked Up John and Aeryn vid, which I don't know enough to make yet but should by the time I finish the LotR vid (see below). Will feature explosions, because the song says so.
There are two other songs that keep saying Farscape to me, but they haven't brought any actual ideas with them, so I'm ignoring them for now.
The Lord of the Rings
This is the vid that has been a nightmare of audio editing. Originally it was going to be a FotR vid, but then the rest of the movies came out, and then I realized my idea was too small for the music, and now I'm waiting to see what's on the RotK extended edition before I make any final decisions. I'm pretty sure that this one won't be showing at any cons; it looks like I'm barely going to be able to get the music cut down to 8 minutes, if that, and that's just too fucking long for people to have to sit through without their explicit consent. Assuming that I get the equipment to burn DVDs this year, this vid may be the thing that kicks my ass to actually make a vid collection on DVD.
X-Files
The Scully vid, which, thank goodness, is almost nothing like "Not Only Human," except for the part where it's (mostly) about Scully.
The Dark And Tormented MSR vid, because the song has a bassline that says X-Files and lyrics that say everything else.
BtVS/AtS
I actually have about 12 BtVS/AtS ideas, some of which are never going to see the light of day and are only in the to-be-vidded folder because I used to be in love with them and am having trouble with the break-up, even though they've treated me badly and I'm no longer returning their calls. The ones described below are the ones that don't utterly suck.
Buffy/Angel vid, or perhaps more accurately a Buffy-post-Angel vid. This is another one where the song just said so. The difficulty I'm having now is in figuring out how to make this vid visually interesting. I'm going to have to do a lot of rewatching for this one (the horror, the horror).
Power-Buffy vid. Not particularly deep, this one, but it just bugs me that there are so few vids focusing on Buffy as an independent character, without reference to the guys in her life. Even "Peacekeeper," which I adore with a fervor that borders on the unhealthy, is about Buffy and the dark origins of her power, Buffy as Slayer; I want to make a vid about Buffy as a girl who kicks some ass. And this song said "Buffy" to me, so I said "okay."
Buffy-POV Buffy/Faith vid. There aren't many of these, as far as I can tell, and I discovered back when I was ripping source for "Superstar" that there's some amazing footage I'd forgotten all about that didn't work for a Faith-POV vid but would work beautifully for Buffy. And there's this song. Waiting for the S7 DVDs before I go back to thinking about this one, since rewatching S7 may change the way I'm thinking about this vid.
I have three different BtVS ensemble vid ideas (two Rainer Maria songs, one Coldplay, all very different moods): a series run, a S6-7 focus, and a S7 finale-focus vid. My favorite is the last one, but it's the one least likely to get made, since I think its moment may be over. But we'll see.
There's a Crazy!Spike vid that I have completely storyboarded and audio-edited, to The Blue Aeroplanes' "Picture Framed." I was sort of working on this when vrya released "Schism," which made me rethink whether I needed to make it, and then I rewatched some of Lum's Spike vids, which really made me rethink whether I needed to make it. If I ever do, I may have to start from scratch-which makes me think it won't get done, since most of the reason I'm still thinking about it is that I already put a fair amount of work into it.
I've been thinking about a Buffy & Giles vid to Tori Amos' "Winter" for a couple of years now; I think Sue Donym's "This Woman's Work" may have said pretty much what I wanted to say, but I also think it would be fun to make, so I waffle. Actually - has somebody made this vid already? I would be really surprised if it hasn't been done, since it qualifies for the World's Most Obvious Song Choice awards.
And then there's the Drusilla vid idea for Tori Amos's "Beauty Queen," which I haven't really thought about at all beyond "well, the song would need to be cut a lot." I want this vid to exist, but I don't really want to make it myself, because I'm lazy like that.
movies
I guess technically I should have put the LotR idea under movies, but LotR feels much bigger than a movie to me. Possibly because it's three movies, with about as much source as the entire run of Firefly. And also because the story's been part of my brain furniture for, oh, a couple of decades now.
I have an idea for The Quick and the Dead, set to an Emmylou Harris song, that I may never get around to, but which I think would be fun. I liked that movie a lot, and it's got some nifty visuals. Plus? Western!
I also have an idea for Dead Man, which... did anybody else even see this movie? It's just so weird. And I have no idea whether I can vid it. The song caught me because of the sound, and I don't know whether I can really do anything with the lyrics. I've only seen the movie once, so I'm working off some pretty dim memories. Of course, I made "Cat Scan" having only seen Donnie Darko once, so maybe if I don't overthink I can get away with more than I'd have expected.
...huh. That's kind of a lot of stuff. Possibly I should quit typing and go start vidding something.
First, I'm still tweaking it. I'd specifically wanted to work on color in this vid, which ended up not happening in time for the con; but now the con's over and I'm not on a deadline and can fiddle with it some more.
Second, I just posted the Wonderfalls vid ("Window of Opportunity"), which also premiered at VividCon, and traffic over at paper cup has jumped accordingly. To give you an idea of what that means: my normal site traffic averages out to about 40 unique visitors and 240 MB of bandwidth per day. For the last several days, I've had between 160 and 190 visitors per day, and bandwidth usage has been between 1.2 and 1.6 GB per day. Which is great, but also means that I'd like to let the site traffic settle back to normal before posting another new vid. If the traffic patterns that followed the posting of "Cat Scan Hist'ry" are any indication, it'll take at least another week for things to taper off.
And now, a bit about the projects I've got on tap...
I've organized these by show, more or less in the order in which I intend to work on them. Also, I've been deliberately coy about song choice for most of these, because I don't want folks second-guessing them, or getting their hands on songs they wouldn't otherwise know about before I've surprised them with the vid. *g*
Farscape
The Women Of Farscape vid, to the song that is going to knock the socks off everybody who doesn't instantly hate it. I will feel really sorry for the people who hate it, because it's fantastic.
The Dark And Fucked Up John and Aeryn vid, which I don't know enough to make yet but should by the time I finish the LotR vid (see below). Will feature explosions, because the song says so.
There are two other songs that keep saying Farscape to me, but they haven't brought any actual ideas with them, so I'm ignoring them for now.
The Lord of the Rings
This is the vid that has been a nightmare of audio editing. Originally it was going to be a FotR vid, but then the rest of the movies came out, and then I realized my idea was too small for the music, and now I'm waiting to see what's on the RotK extended edition before I make any final decisions. I'm pretty sure that this one won't be showing at any cons; it looks like I'm barely going to be able to get the music cut down to 8 minutes, if that, and that's just too fucking long for people to have to sit through without their explicit consent. Assuming that I get the equipment to burn DVDs this year, this vid may be the thing that kicks my ass to actually make a vid collection on DVD.
X-Files
The Scully vid, which, thank goodness, is almost nothing like "Not Only Human," except for the part where it's (mostly) about Scully.
The Dark And Tormented MSR vid, because the song has a bassline that says X-Files and lyrics that say everything else.
BtVS/AtS
I actually have about 12 BtVS/AtS ideas, some of which are never going to see the light of day and are only in the to-be-vidded folder because I used to be in love with them and am having trouble with the break-up, even though they've treated me badly and I'm no longer returning their calls. The ones described below are the ones that don't utterly suck.
Buffy/Angel vid, or perhaps more accurately a Buffy-post-Angel vid. This is another one where the song just said so. The difficulty I'm having now is in figuring out how to make this vid visually interesting. I'm going to have to do a lot of rewatching for this one (the horror, the horror).
Power-Buffy vid. Not particularly deep, this one, but it just bugs me that there are so few vids focusing on Buffy as an independent character, without reference to the guys in her life. Even "Peacekeeper," which I adore with a fervor that borders on the unhealthy, is about Buffy and the dark origins of her power, Buffy as Slayer; I want to make a vid about Buffy as a girl who kicks some ass. And this song said "Buffy" to me, so I said "okay."
Buffy-POV Buffy/Faith vid. There aren't many of these, as far as I can tell, and I discovered back when I was ripping source for "Superstar" that there's some amazing footage I'd forgotten all about that didn't work for a Faith-POV vid but would work beautifully for Buffy. And there's this song. Waiting for the S7 DVDs before I go back to thinking about this one, since rewatching S7 may change the way I'm thinking about this vid.
I have three different BtVS ensemble vid ideas (two Rainer Maria songs, one Coldplay, all very different moods): a series run, a S6-7 focus, and a S7 finale-focus vid. My favorite is the last one, but it's the one least likely to get made, since I think its moment may be over. But we'll see.
There's a Crazy!Spike vid that I have completely storyboarded and audio-edited, to The Blue Aeroplanes' "Picture Framed." I was sort of working on this when vrya released "Schism," which made me rethink whether I needed to make it, and then I rewatched some of Lum's Spike vids, which really made me rethink whether I needed to make it. If I ever do, I may have to start from scratch-which makes me think it won't get done, since most of the reason I'm still thinking about it is that I already put a fair amount of work into it.
I've been thinking about a Buffy & Giles vid to Tori Amos' "Winter" for a couple of years now; I think Sue Donym's "This Woman's Work" may have said pretty much what I wanted to say, but I also think it would be fun to make, so I waffle. Actually - has somebody made this vid already? I would be really surprised if it hasn't been done, since it qualifies for the World's Most Obvious Song Choice awards.
And then there's the Drusilla vid idea for Tori Amos's "Beauty Queen," which I haven't really thought about at all beyond "well, the song would need to be cut a lot." I want this vid to exist, but I don't really want to make it myself, because I'm lazy like that.
movies
I guess technically I should have put the LotR idea under movies, but LotR feels much bigger than a movie to me. Possibly because it's three movies, with about as much source as the entire run of Firefly. And also because the story's been part of my brain furniture for, oh, a couple of decades now.
I have an idea for The Quick and the Dead, set to an Emmylou Harris song, that I may never get around to, but which I think would be fun. I liked that movie a lot, and it's got some nifty visuals. Plus? Western!
I also have an idea for Dead Man, which... did anybody else even see this movie? It's just so weird. And I have no idea whether I can vid it. The song caught me because of the sound, and I don't know whether I can really do anything with the lyrics. I've only seen the movie once, so I'm working off some pretty dim memories. Of course, I made "Cat Scan" having only seen Donnie Darko once, so maybe if I don't overthink I can get away with more than I'd have expected.
...huh. That's kind of a lot of stuff. Possibly I should quit typing and go start vidding something.