2008 vidding meme
2008 vidding meme
It's that time of year again. I was hoping to squeeze out another vid this year, but the timeline is looking shite and there's only this weekend before I go away on holiday and it's already Saturday evening and all I'm doing is watching back episodes of The L Word, so it looks highly unlikely another 2008 vid will be forthcoming. Ergo meme.
For those interested, here's my 2007 vidding meme, and here's my 2006 vidding meme.
Noticing a disturbing trend of fewer and fewer vids produced each year. Any fewer than 8 and I wouldn't be making a DVD; just managed to scrape by this year but wary of what will happen in 2009, given the trend.
Vids made in 2008
(sorted by completion date rather than release date)
January
The Fountain - movie
February
Piece of Me - Britney Spears
March
None
April
New Slang - Friday Night Lights
May
None
June
Climbing up the Walls - Supernatural/Firefly/Heroes
July
You Make Me Wanna - Skins
August
None
September
OMG! - Doctor Who/Torchwood
October
None
November
Cuckoo - Angel
December
Red - Merlin
My favorite video this year (of my own):
Red, because it was driven by genuine fannishness and Arthur/Merlin love rather than trying to be an artiste with an e and a beret.
My least favourite video this year:
The Fountain. Fucking hate some of the speed changes and jump cuts and blurs.
Most successful video
Within fandom, it was definitely Walls.
Video most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Honestly I feel that none of my vids have been underappreciated this year, and a number have been overappreciated or, if that's not the right word, at least have been hyped for far more than they're worth. For which I'm grateful, if also humbled and bemused.
Most fun video:
OMG!. The title gives away the glee. :D You Make Me Wanna comes a close second in terms of pure gay crack.
Video with single sexiest moment:
Despite all the porn in Walls and nekkid Maxxie butt in YMMW, my personal answer is 1:33 in Red.
Biggest vid fail
When I realised that, if left un-repositioned, Merlin's face would crossfade directly into Arthur's crotch at 0:18 in Red. If the vid had been a frolicking gay romp then that would have been heaven on a stick. Except it wasn't.
To illustrate my point:
It was clearly destiny.
Hardest video to make:
Luckily nothing really kicked my arse this year in terms of really struggling to get something to look and say exactly what I wanted it to look and say. I'll have to say Walls just because of the amount of source involved.
Most unintentionally telling video:
Cuckoo. But perhaps "unintentional" isn't the right word because I was very aware of how I could see myself in this vid. I'm not working for an evil law firm, but I suppose you can see echoes of any professional services firm in Wolfram and Hart. It's odd how much one's identity gets sucked up into a corporate logo. And one always sees in oneself Lindsey, Angel's shadow self. In that respect it's telling but not as telling as the Lilah vid next year.
The things I've learned this year:
- On narrative: beautiful metaphors are well and good as long as they don't crowd out the ending; a narrative clean kill usually means using the most obvious-looking clip in the most obvious way to close out the vid.
- On randomly throwing clips on the timeline and hoping for the best: sometimes works (and fails miserably the rest of the time), but you're almost guaranteed a better result if you can see most of the vid in your head before you start. I've found that random clip-throwing just ends with a lot of half-baked shite vids in my "WIP rejects" folder.
- On selling your product: Get someone who's really good at banner-making to sell your vid. Pretty graphic might not always equal good vid, but you can be certain a pretty graphic will swing more casual watchers into watching it in the first place.
For 2009:
- Women, feminist readings and femslash. I need a change of pace after 3 years of nearly nothing but pretty white boys and their daddy issues.
- Try my hand at something more kinetic and visually stimulating, because I'm wildly jealous every time bradcpu churns out one of those with ease.
- Play with text.
At this point I'm too ashamed to even put down After Effects as a goal for 2009, since I'd been talking about it as a "to do" for the last two memes. But I think I do need to upgrade from dinosaur Premiere 6.5 to Pro at the very least.
It's that time of year again. I was hoping to squeeze out another vid this year, but the timeline is looking shite and there's only this weekend before I go away on holiday and it's already Saturday evening and all I'm doing is watching back episodes of The L Word, so it looks highly unlikely another 2008 vid will be forthcoming. Ergo meme.
For those interested, here's my 2007 vidding meme, and here's my 2006 vidding meme.
Noticing a disturbing trend of fewer and fewer vids produced each year. Any fewer than 8 and I wouldn't be making a DVD; just managed to scrape by this year but wary of what will happen in 2009, given the trend.
Vids made in 2008
(sorted by completion date rather than release date)
January
The Fountain - movie
February
Piece of Me - Britney Spears
March
None
April
New Slang - Friday Night Lights
May
None
June
Climbing up the Walls - Supernatural/Firefly/Heroes
July
You Make Me Wanna - Skins
August
None
September
OMG! - Doctor Who/Torchwood
October
None
November
Cuckoo - Angel
December
Red - Merlin
My favorite video this year (of my own):
Red, because it was driven by genuine fannishness and Arthur/Merlin love rather than trying to be an artiste with an e and a beret.
My least favourite video this year:
The Fountain. Fucking hate some of the speed changes and jump cuts and blurs.
Most successful video
Within fandom, it was definitely Walls.
Video most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Honestly I feel that none of my vids have been underappreciated this year, and a number have been overappreciated or, if that's not the right word, at least have been hyped for far more than they're worth. For which I'm grateful, if also humbled and bemused.
Most fun video:
OMG!. The title gives away the glee. :D You Make Me Wanna comes a close second in terms of pure gay crack.
Video with single sexiest moment:
Despite all the porn in Walls and nekkid Maxxie butt in YMMW, my personal answer is 1:33 in Red.
Biggest vid fail
When I realised that, if left un-repositioned, Merlin's face would crossfade directly into Arthur's crotch at 0:18 in Red. If the vid had been a frolicking gay romp then that would have been heaven on a stick. Except it wasn't.
To illustrate my point:
It was clearly destiny.
Hardest video to make:
Luckily nothing really kicked my arse this year in terms of really struggling to get something to look and say exactly what I wanted it to look and say. I'll have to say Walls just because of the amount of source involved.
Most unintentionally telling video:
Cuckoo. But perhaps "unintentional" isn't the right word because I was very aware of how I could see myself in this vid. I'm not working for an evil law firm, but I suppose you can see echoes of any professional services firm in Wolfram and Hart. It's odd how much one's identity gets sucked up into a corporate logo. And one always sees in oneself Lindsey, Angel's shadow self. In that respect it's telling but not as telling as the Lilah vid next year.
The things I've learned this year:
- On narrative: beautiful metaphors are well and good as long as they don't crowd out the ending; a narrative clean kill usually means using the most obvious-looking clip in the most obvious way to close out the vid.
- On randomly throwing clips on the timeline and hoping for the best: sometimes works (and fails miserably the rest of the time), but you're almost guaranteed a better result if you can see most of the vid in your head before you start. I've found that random clip-throwing just ends with a lot of half-baked shite vids in my "WIP rejects" folder.
- On selling your product: Get someone who's really good at banner-making to sell your vid. Pretty graphic might not always equal good vid, but you can be certain a pretty graphic will swing more casual watchers into watching it in the first place.
For 2009:
- Women, feminist readings and femslash. I need a change of pace after 3 years of nearly nothing but pretty white boys and their daddy issues.
- Try my hand at something more kinetic and visually stimulating, because I'm wildly jealous every time bradcpu churns out one of those with ease.
- Play with text.
At this point I'm too ashamed to even put down After Effects as a goal for 2009, since I'd been talking about it as a "to do" for the last two memes. But I think I do need to upgrade from dinosaur Premiere 6.5 to Pro at the very least.