Festivids 2012 Commentary
Okay, this is going to be a lot of blabbering about vids. I've never made posts explaining my thought process for vidding before, but I promised myself I would this time, because I was really trying to do something different with all of them.
Before I start, I just want to say that the past few months have been quite rough for me, and honestly, at one point I thought I might have to drop out. Festivids has always been really special to me, since it's what got me into vidding in the first place, and I knew if I had to default, I'd just be even more disappointed in myself. I promised myself I'd do the best I could and at least do my assignment. I managed to finish all three I set out to do originally, and it really brought my spirits up. So thank you so much, giandujakiss and halcyon_shift, for doing an amazing job (as you always do) and for helping me kick my own ass into gear a little bit. :)
First up is Brush Your Shoulders Off (Matilda). This was my assignment vid, but I actually started working on this the night before assignments came out because it was the first and most exciting idea I had from people's Dear Festividders (and I met ua_the_terrible at vividcon this year and he is completely awesome, so I wanted to make him something). I was originally thinking about doing this fandom to Do You Believe In Magic by the Lovin' Spoonful (and was actually kind of surprised it wasn't on Matilda's soundtrack, tbh), but it had the potential to be a crackvid because of the "magic" part of the song, which is not what I wanted, and more importantly, ua_the_terrible requested Matilda being a badass to a rap song. I should mention that he seemed to be pretty lenient about song choice, so I could've done something different, but especially because this became my assignment, I wanted to give him something that was as close to what he asked for as possible. As soon as I stumbled upon the Dirt Off Your Shoulders/Bittersweet Symphony mashup, I knew it was PERFECT. Both songs had lyrics that matched the idea of the movie really well, and the tempo was super viddable.
The only problem is that in Dirt Off Your Shoulders, Jay-Z says the n-word EIGHT TIMES. That is a LOT of song editing, and it's especially hard to bleep those out in a mashup. I ended up spending about two days editing the music. I cut the n-words out, created a sound in GarageBand to replace the awkward silence, stuck the original Bittersweet Symphony under the mashup, and then had to line it all up so it didn't sound awkward. More and more sounds pile onto the main harmony as Bittersweet Symphony goes on, and the mashup didn't just keep looping the same verse, but didn't use the whole song, either. So that was fun. And then I ended up cutting the song in two different places, which made it MORE difficult. This is definitely the most intensive sound editing I've ever done, but I think it actually turned out okay. It's obvious that I edited it, but I don't think it's distracting, which is the only thing I really cared about.
Okay, now to the actual vidding part. It seems fairly linear, because the point of the vid is also kind of the point of the movie, but I definitely was throwing clips all over different parts of the timeline. The only part I did in any sort of order was the Miss Honey bit near the end, and it was one of the last things I did as well. I wanted to save that part for last because I knew I wanted that to be the most emotional, and I knew I'd feel it more if I got the rest of the vid done first. At first I was going to leave her birth-family out of it, but they're actually so important to the story that I felt like I needed to include them. I don't regret it at all -- it would have been a completely different vid without them. I also intentionally put a lot of reading/book clips at the beginning, so we got that solid foundation of who Matilda is. I wanted to save some to throw in every once in a while as a reminder that while telekinesis is pretty cool and she definitely avenged herself multiple times, she will always be that little girl who loves to read. I wanted to end on the clip of her reading to Miss Honey because the movie starts with her having nothing and ends with her having the two things she loves/wants the most - a book and a family. So yeah, it's probably a little cliche to end the vid on the last shot of the movie, but there were REASONS! I worked on this vid for aaaages. I kept leaving it and coming back to it, rinse and repeat, and I put a lot into it. I didn't actually finish until the day before deadline, so even though I took breaks, I spent the entire time given to work on assignments making this vid. I'm really glad I did. I'd even go as far as saying that I personally think this is my best work to date, and I'm super proud of it. Thank you for requesting the movie of both our hearts, ua_the_terrible! I hope your first Festivids experience was a wonderful one.
The next one I worked on was Less Plot, More Stripping. I've been planning to make this vid since I saw the movie, and the song choice actually came from my boss, who said "I always think of Magic Mike when I hear Moves Like Jagger!" DONE. So I nominated Magic Mike for Festivids, hoping someone would give me an excuse to finally sit down and make this vid, and dualbunny is the best and requested basically exactly what I wanted to make. I'm not going to lie, dualbunny has made some of my favorite vids of all time, so making her a vid was kind of intimidating, but I think that actually pushed me to challenge myself with this (technically, obviously -- the idea wasn't too difficult to get across). I'm generally a pretty slow/mid-paced vidder and tend to use a lot of static source, so I kind of used this vid as an experiment to see what I could do with speed and internal movement. It wasn't exactly fast, but it's faster than what I've been doing, and I think I did a lot with internal movement that I haven't done before which also made it seem faster than it was, so I'm glad I made this. This took me a little over a week to make. I pretty much had just enough footage to make this without making it look super repetitive. Thank god for that stripping montage! I also have a new appreciation for Channing Tatum's thighs.
Crazy For You, Baby was the last vid I made! I started watching Victorious after milly linked me in vidchat to a Tori/Jade vid to a One Direction song. That girl knows the way to my heart! She talked to me about it at vividcon as well, and I figured if she was trying that hard to get me into her fandom, I should probably reward her with a vid. This is I think the first fandom I watched for the first time with the intention to vid it, so that was kind of a cool experience. I looked for as many Tori/Jade moments I could find, or even moments I could manipulate into them clearly being in love with each other (which really wasn't difficult, as you can see with the part at the bridge of the song). After watching each episode, I labeled them as having no Tori/Jade moments, having one or two kind of slashy moments that I maybe could use, or having at least one (but probably many more) super slashy moments I could definitely use. It made it a lot easier to clip afterwards, because I remembered each episode pretty clearly and why I marked it whatever I marked it.
The song choice was a lot more difficult. I put my iTunes on shuffle, listened to the radio, etc and just couldn't find a perfect song for them. psuedo_catalyst suggested Crazy For You over the phone when I described what I was looking for. I had actually thought about that song briefly before when it came up on my iTunes, and I kind of brushed it off because it wasn't necessarily the type of music I usually vid to, but once she mentioned it, I reconsidered it, and the lyrics were perfect, so I went with it. I knew milly would figure out this was me (and she did), but I thought maybe the song choice would also make me a little less obvious. Apparently not! :P But anyway, this is the first time I've vidded femslash, which I've been wanting to do for a long time. Tori and Jade are so ridiculous and, yes, completely in love with each other, and I'm glad milly kept talking my ear off about this show, or I never would have seen it. So thank you, milly!
(Crossposted to elipie)
Before I start, I just want to say that the past few months have been quite rough for me, and honestly, at one point I thought I might have to drop out. Festivids has always been really special to me, since it's what got me into vidding in the first place, and I knew if I had to default, I'd just be even more disappointed in myself. I promised myself I'd do the best I could and at least do my assignment. I managed to finish all three I set out to do originally, and it really brought my spirits up. So thank you so much, giandujakiss and halcyon_shift, for doing an amazing job (as you always do) and for helping me kick my own ass into gear a little bit. :)
First up is Brush Your Shoulders Off (Matilda). This was my assignment vid, but I actually started working on this the night before assignments came out because it was the first and most exciting idea I had from people's Dear Festividders (and I met ua_the_terrible at vividcon this year and he is completely awesome, so I wanted to make him something). I was originally thinking about doing this fandom to Do You Believe In Magic by the Lovin' Spoonful (and was actually kind of surprised it wasn't on Matilda's soundtrack, tbh), but it had the potential to be a crackvid because of the "magic" part of the song, which is not what I wanted, and more importantly, ua_the_terrible requested Matilda being a badass to a rap song. I should mention that he seemed to be pretty lenient about song choice, so I could've done something different, but especially because this became my assignment, I wanted to give him something that was as close to what he asked for as possible. As soon as I stumbled upon the Dirt Off Your Shoulders/Bittersweet Symphony mashup, I knew it was PERFECT. Both songs had lyrics that matched the idea of the movie really well, and the tempo was super viddable.
The only problem is that in Dirt Off Your Shoulders, Jay-Z says the n-word EIGHT TIMES. That is a LOT of song editing, and it's especially hard to bleep those out in a mashup. I ended up spending about two days editing the music. I cut the n-words out, created a sound in GarageBand to replace the awkward silence, stuck the original Bittersweet Symphony under the mashup, and then had to line it all up so it didn't sound awkward. More and more sounds pile onto the main harmony as Bittersweet Symphony goes on, and the mashup didn't just keep looping the same verse, but didn't use the whole song, either. So that was fun. And then I ended up cutting the song in two different places, which made it MORE difficult. This is definitely the most intensive sound editing I've ever done, but I think it actually turned out okay. It's obvious that I edited it, but I don't think it's distracting, which is the only thing I really cared about.
Okay, now to the actual vidding part. It seems fairly linear, because the point of the vid is also kind of the point of the movie, but I definitely was throwing clips all over different parts of the timeline. The only part I did in any sort of order was the Miss Honey bit near the end, and it was one of the last things I did as well. I wanted to save that part for last because I knew I wanted that to be the most emotional, and I knew I'd feel it more if I got the rest of the vid done first. At first I was going to leave her birth-family out of it, but they're actually so important to the story that I felt like I needed to include them. I don't regret it at all -- it would have been a completely different vid without them. I also intentionally put a lot of reading/book clips at the beginning, so we got that solid foundation of who Matilda is. I wanted to save some to throw in every once in a while as a reminder that while telekinesis is pretty cool and she definitely avenged herself multiple times, she will always be that little girl who loves to read. I wanted to end on the clip of her reading to Miss Honey because the movie starts with her having nothing and ends with her having the two things she loves/wants the most - a book and a family. So yeah, it's probably a little cliche to end the vid on the last shot of the movie, but there were REASONS! I worked on this vid for aaaages. I kept leaving it and coming back to it, rinse and repeat, and I put a lot into it. I didn't actually finish until the day before deadline, so even though I took breaks, I spent the entire time given to work on assignments making this vid. I'm really glad I did. I'd even go as far as saying that I personally think this is my best work to date, and I'm super proud of it. Thank you for requesting the movie of both our hearts, ua_the_terrible! I hope your first Festivids experience was a wonderful one.
The next one I worked on was Less Plot, More Stripping. I've been planning to make this vid since I saw the movie, and the song choice actually came from my boss, who said "I always think of Magic Mike when I hear Moves Like Jagger!" DONE. So I nominated Magic Mike for Festivids, hoping someone would give me an excuse to finally sit down and make this vid, and dualbunny is the best and requested basically exactly what I wanted to make. I'm not going to lie, dualbunny has made some of my favorite vids of all time, so making her a vid was kind of intimidating, but I think that actually pushed me to challenge myself with this (technically, obviously -- the idea wasn't too difficult to get across). I'm generally a pretty slow/mid-paced vidder and tend to use a lot of static source, so I kind of used this vid as an experiment to see what I could do with speed and internal movement. It wasn't exactly fast, but it's faster than what I've been doing, and I think I did a lot with internal movement that I haven't done before which also made it seem faster than it was, so I'm glad I made this. This took me a little over a week to make. I pretty much had just enough footage to make this without making it look super repetitive. Thank god for that stripping montage! I also have a new appreciation for Channing Tatum's thighs.
Crazy For You, Baby was the last vid I made! I started watching Victorious after milly linked me in vidchat to a Tori/Jade vid to a One Direction song. That girl knows the way to my heart! She talked to me about it at vividcon as well, and I figured if she was trying that hard to get me into her fandom, I should probably reward her with a vid. This is I think the first fandom I watched for the first time with the intention to vid it, so that was kind of a cool experience. I looked for as many Tori/Jade moments I could find, or even moments I could manipulate into them clearly being in love with each other (which really wasn't difficult, as you can see with the part at the bridge of the song). After watching each episode, I labeled them as having no Tori/Jade moments, having one or two kind of slashy moments that I maybe could use, or having at least one (but probably many more) super slashy moments I could definitely use. It made it a lot easier to clip afterwards, because I remembered each episode pretty clearly and why I marked it whatever I marked it.
The song choice was a lot more difficult. I put my iTunes on shuffle, listened to the radio, etc and just couldn't find a perfect song for them. psuedo_catalyst suggested Crazy For You over the phone when I described what I was looking for. I had actually thought about that song briefly before when it came up on my iTunes, and I kind of brushed it off because it wasn't necessarily the type of music I usually vid to, but once she mentioned it, I reconsidered it, and the lyrics were perfect, so I went with it. I knew milly would figure out this was me (and she did), but I thought maybe the song choice would also make me a little less obvious. Apparently not! :P But anyway, this is the first time I've vidded femslash, which I've been wanting to do for a long time. Tori and Jade are so ridiculous and, yes, completely in love with each other, and I'm glad milly kept talking my ear off about this show, or I never would have seen it. So thank you, milly!
(Crossposted to elipie)