I returned from VividCon alive
Best VVC ever. I met so many people: people I'd met back at VVC in '08/'09, people I'd known forever online but had inexcusably never met until now (hi, bironic!), people I knew from this past 
festivids, and people I'd never met before online or off. Previous VividCons I had attended were for me a mixture of delight and misery, the misery a product of an acute mixture of terror and awkwardness. VVC is the kind of social situation where I am least comfortable. I am comfortable working in customer service, dealing with coworkers, and chatting with random (sometimes crazy) strangers at bus stops, but throw me in a party/mixer type situation where socializing with semi-strangers who may all know each other is the point of the activity and I flounder. Participating in festivids and hanging out in #vidding helped a lot. Hanging out a bunch more offline in these kinds of situations made me appreciate how much better it was being in this type of situation with a bunch of congenial people with a shared interest. And not being quite so terrified made me notice that other people were terrified too, which made the whole situation less terrifying. As the weekend wore on, I got more tired and thus more timid, but only gradually. I couldn't figure out where any of the room parties were after Thursday night, but since I was always sleepy by that point in the evening anyway, heading back to my room to sleep made sense. Heading back to my room intending to sleep but instead staying up until the wee hours of the morning talking to my roomie
franzeska made less sense healthwise, but je ne regrette rien!
Because I was not strenuously avoiding socializing this year, I ended up attending far fewer vidshows than I had at previous cons. Instead, I went to a number of panels. My favourite was
kuwdora's WIP It Good panel, which I wish had been two hours long, seeing as how my multitude of failings in vidding technique etc. are insignificant in the face of my basic inability to finish a vid. In the panel I learned that people have a variety of different approaches to organizing the vidding process. Some people make big databases of clips (with fields like Episode/Timecode/Character(s)/Scene setting/Description) or tables of lyrics (timecode, music/lyrics, theme/mood, clips). Clip organization can be a tool in vid-making. Keep in mind when making the database (or the vid) what you need to know about the clip for the vid -- e.g., is chronology important? I only kept a few notes for this one, so I have to look online. One thing I never seem to make note of during the clipping stage is the motion in each clip, but doing so would be helpful for creating a smooth-flowing (or appropriately rhythmic) vid. kuwdora talked about doing all the clipping first, permanently severing all the pieces one needs before opening up a project, and how alien it sounded to her to open the entire source up in the project and clip there, but that's what I do and I don't think I'm motivated enough to do it another way; I like having the flexibility of not having hard cuts and of even having my in-program "hard cuts" being extensible with only a little effort. But I am certainly going to try this clip database thing. I do make extensive notes for clipping, but they are organized serially in text files, which is less useful, and without much motion data, which I should add.
The second panel I attended was Vid Your Id. The main lesson I took away from this one was that other people were as frustrated as I was that "id" couldn't be smushed together with "vid" since one word is already a subset of the other. "Id-vidding" was the best we could come up with. [Oh, like "idfic"! Which is a term I should use because it only confuses people when I call it "emo porn".]
The panel on vidding instrumentals was valuable, though I wish it had focused a little more on the panelists sharing their expertise and less on audience brainstorming. We discussed the different kinds of instrumental pieces used for vid (where instrumental is anything without lyrics; the voice can be an instrument): instrumentals composed as such, instrumental versions of songs -- where you might have to take into account that the audience may know the lyrics or the general gist of the lyrics, music from contexts like games -- where there were never lyrics, but there is a strong layer of specific meaning imparted by the sounds (the music is saying this show is Mario, this sound means level up, etc.), and audio tracks that are composed of non-musical noises. We discussed how a lack of words in the soundtrack opens the opportunities to include more text in the video track or to superimpose spoken word from the source. We discussed how if the audio doesn't provide as precise guidance for following and interpreting the narrative of the vid, you have to make sure you provide that guidance and structure through your editing. On the flip side, because instrumental tracks only impose a more general meaning to the vid and don't constrain it clip-by-clip, instrumental might be a good choice for when you form a detailed vid idea without having a song in mind (a problem I face all the time).
jetpack_monkey's vidding horror panel was thought provoking. The topic covered vidding horror movies as horror, vidding horror movies as something other than horror, and vidding non-horror movies as horror. jetpack_monkey pointed out that "horror" is a very broad genre label, covering not just the slashers that everyone in the room seemed to think of first, but all sorts of monster movies, psychological horror, creepy science fiction & fantasy, etc. He also pointed out that an essential part of horror was german words the unheimlich. An advantage of horror is that you can use the expectation that something bad is going to happen, using clips that suggest but stop short to build tension. A downside of vidding horror rather than, say, romance is that you have a much smaller selection of songs to choose from. It was suggested that it might not be a problem to choose a song whose mood matches the story you want to tell but whose lyrics don't, because having creepiness happen in your vid in multiple disconnected ways is creepy itself. (PS -- The fanfic I was gushing about after this panel was The Things, by Peter Watts.)
I was disappointed by the pacing panel because I thought it was going to be about something other than what it was actually about. I was hoping for something more about structure -- for example, how to build to a climax when you are confined by the verse/chorus/bridge structure of a song, or conversely, when you aren't -- and it was more about editing rhythms. Not that rhythm isn't an important vidding subject, but I need so much more help with structure. Notes: matching the pace of the song is not the be-all and end-all, since the song pace may be too slack or metronomic to keep the audience's attention. Of course, make sure to reflect song pace changes. Vary clip length but maintain the energy. Be aware of internal motion in terms of energy. Be aware of clip content (such as emotional intensity) when pacing; emotional power can sustain or even require a longer clip to give the audience time to process it. Don't make a different choice in interpretation of the song's rhythm in one part of your vid than in the rest of your vid, unless you want that section to be different and stand out. You can use crossfades and other transitions to incorporate longer clips while keeping the screen busy. Make three one-minute vids if you can't sustain one three-minute vid using that song. (PS -- Why do I have a note here that says "Vid charades!"? And can I play too?)
talitha78's panel about threatening new fannish platforms provided interesting information gathered from the foreign shores of Tumblr, Twitter, etc.: Vids posted on YouTube are ephemeral -- save copies while you can because takedowns and deletions are frequent (as opposed to on LJ/DWth, where deletions are atypical and considered notable). On Vimeo and some other similar services you can avoid takedowns via password protecting your vid, and the password you choose becomes part of the creative experience. The wide and unconnected audience of YouTube is a plus to some and a minus to others, as you can get huge swaths of feedback and reach new people, but some vidders value reaching only those who are or will become part of the community they inhabit and find the attention one can get on YouTube intrusive rather than desirable. YouTube and Tumblr audiences also have different expectations; for example, they have no expectation that the person posting a work is the work's creator. One person in the panel even wondered if it was taboo to post your own work, like it would be in a recs journal. Others said it wasn't, I think. Tumblr is good for shorter vids, 1-1.5 minutes long. Tag vids with "fanvid", not with "vid", as the latter tag is used for porn (porn being one of the biggest uses of Tumblr). Tumblr is very multimedia -- short stories like round robins spring up in reblogs, with gif sets incorporated. Tumblr gif sets may be a developing new artform, as they aren't quite video but aren't quite image posts either. Tumblr and Twitter move very fast. If you miss something, you have to hope it will come round again, because browsing archived posts and conversations is not feasible. My notes cut off halfway through a sentence about Tumblr comments on five reblogs down being still... something. Must have gotten distracted by the stream of porn, cat pictures, and Vin Diesel Mona Lisas Talitha was so generous as to provide as a background display for the panel.
Those were the panels. I went to very few vidshows.
Vids that stuck with me:
- several Fringe vids (in instrumental vidshow, CVV, and premieres)
- I Wanna Dance by Jarrow to Glee in CVV
- Evil Love Shack of Darkness by SE to Evil Dead trilogy in CVV
- Let Me Put My Love Into You by sweetestdrain to Bitch Slap in Premieres
- Masters of War (Pegasus Rising Remix) by bironic to Stargate: Atlantis in Premieres
- Everything Is Wrong by Laura Shapiro to Community in Premieres
- It's All Coming Back to Me Now by Greensilver to Captain America comics in Karaoke
In summation: had a great time at the con. Now I have written this up, posted it, and I can get on with my journal.
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festivids, and people I'd never met before online or off. Previous VividCons I had attended were for me a mixture of delight and misery, the misery a product of an acute mixture of terror and awkwardness. VVC is the kind of social situation where I am least comfortable. I am comfortable working in customer service, dealing with coworkers, and chatting with random (sometimes crazy) strangers at bus stops, but throw me in a party/mixer type situation where socializing with semi-strangers who may all know each other is the point of the activity and I flounder. Participating in festivids and hanging out in #vidding helped a lot. Hanging out a bunch more offline in these kinds of situations made me appreciate how much better it was being in this type of situation with a bunch of congenial people with a shared interest. And not being quite so terrified made me notice that other people were terrified too, which made the whole situation less terrifying. As the weekend wore on, I got more tired and thus more timid, but only gradually. I couldn't figure out where any of the room parties were after Thursday night, but since I was always sleepy by that point in the evening anyway, heading back to my room to sleep made sense. Heading back to my room intending to sleep but instead staying up until the wee hours of the morning talking to my roomie
franzeska made less sense healthwise, but je ne regrette rien!
Because I was not strenuously avoiding socializing this year, I ended up attending far fewer vidshows than I had at previous cons. Instead, I went to a number of panels. My favourite was
kuwdora's WIP It Good panel, which I wish had been two hours long, seeing as how my multitude of failings in vidding technique etc. are insignificant in the face of my basic inability to finish a vid. In the panel I learned that people have a variety of different approaches to organizing the vidding process. Some people make big databases of clips (with fields like Episode/Timecode/Character(s)/Scene setting/Description) or tables of lyrics (timecode, music/lyrics, theme/mood, clips). Clip organization can be a tool in vid-making. Keep in mind when making the database (or the vid) what you need to know about the clip for the vid -- e.g., is chronology important? I only kept a few notes for this one, so I have to look online. One thing I never seem to make note of during the clipping stage is the motion in each clip, but doing so would be helpful for creating a smooth-flowing (or appropriately rhythmic) vid. kuwdora talked about doing all the clipping first, permanently severing all the pieces one needs before opening up a project, and how alien it sounded to her to open the entire source up in the project and clip there, but that's what I do and I don't think I'm motivated enough to do it another way; I like having the flexibility of not having hard cuts and of even having my in-program "hard cuts" being extensible with only a little effort. But I am certainly going to try this clip database thing. I do make extensive notes for clipping, but they are organized serially in text files, which is less useful, and without much motion data, which I should add.
The second panel I attended was Vid Your Id. The main lesson I took away from this one was that other people were as frustrated as I was that "id" couldn't be smushed together with "vid" since one word is already a subset of the other. "Id-vidding" was the best we could come up with. [Oh, like "idfic"! Which is a term I should use because it only confuses people when I call it "emo porn".]
The panel on vidding instrumentals was valuable, though I wish it had focused a little more on the panelists sharing their expertise and less on audience brainstorming. We discussed the different kinds of instrumental pieces used for vid (where instrumental is anything without lyrics; the voice can be an instrument): instrumentals composed as such, instrumental versions of songs -- where you might have to take into account that the audience may know the lyrics or the general gist of the lyrics, music from contexts like games -- where there were never lyrics, but there is a strong layer of specific meaning imparted by the sounds (the music is saying this show is Mario, this sound means level up, etc.), and audio tracks that are composed of non-musical noises. We discussed how a lack of words in the soundtrack opens the opportunities to include more text in the video track or to superimpose spoken word from the source. We discussed how if the audio doesn't provide as precise guidance for following and interpreting the narrative of the vid, you have to make sure you provide that guidance and structure through your editing. On the flip side, because instrumental tracks only impose a more general meaning to the vid and don't constrain it clip-by-clip, instrumental might be a good choice for when you form a detailed vid idea without having a song in mind (a problem I face all the time).
jetpack_monkey's vidding horror panel was thought provoking. The topic covered vidding horror movies as horror, vidding horror movies as something other than horror, and vidding non-horror movies as horror. jetpack_monkey pointed out that "horror" is a very broad genre label, covering not just the slashers that everyone in the room seemed to think of first, but all sorts of monster movies, psychological horror, creepy science fiction & fantasy, etc. He also pointed out that an essential part of horror was german words the unheimlich. An advantage of horror is that you can use the expectation that something bad is going to happen, using clips that suggest but stop short to build tension. A downside of vidding horror rather than, say, romance is that you have a much smaller selection of songs to choose from. It was suggested that it might not be a problem to choose a song whose mood matches the story you want to tell but whose lyrics don't, because having creepiness happen in your vid in multiple disconnected ways is creepy itself. (PS -- The fanfic I was gushing about after this panel was The Things, by Peter Watts.)
I was disappointed by the pacing panel because I thought it was going to be about something other than what it was actually about. I was hoping for something more about structure -- for example, how to build to a climax when you are confined by the verse/chorus/bridge structure of a song, or conversely, when you aren't -- and it was more about editing rhythms. Not that rhythm isn't an important vidding subject, but I need so much more help with structure. Notes: matching the pace of the song is not the be-all and end-all, since the song pace may be too slack or metronomic to keep the audience's attention. Of course, make sure to reflect song pace changes. Vary clip length but maintain the energy. Be aware of internal motion in terms of energy. Be aware of clip content (such as emotional intensity) when pacing; emotional power can sustain or even require a longer clip to give the audience time to process it. Don't make a different choice in interpretation of the song's rhythm in one part of your vid than in the rest of your vid, unless you want that section to be different and stand out. You can use crossfades and other transitions to incorporate longer clips while keeping the screen busy. Make three one-minute vids if you can't sustain one three-minute vid using that song. (PS -- Why do I have a note here that says "Vid charades!"? And can I play too?)
talitha78's panel about threatening new fannish platforms provided interesting information gathered from the foreign shores of Tumblr, Twitter, etc.: Vids posted on YouTube are ephemeral -- save copies while you can because takedowns and deletions are frequent (as opposed to on LJ/DWth, where deletions are atypical and considered notable). On Vimeo and some other similar services you can avoid takedowns via password protecting your vid, and the password you choose becomes part of the creative experience. The wide and unconnected audience of YouTube is a plus to some and a minus to others, as you can get huge swaths of feedback and reach new people, but some vidders value reaching only those who are or will become part of the community they inhabit and find the attention one can get on YouTube intrusive rather than desirable. YouTube and Tumblr audiences also have different expectations; for example, they have no expectation that the person posting a work is the work's creator. One person in the panel even wondered if it was taboo to post your own work, like it would be in a recs journal. Others said it wasn't, I think. Tumblr is good for shorter vids, 1-1.5 minutes long. Tag vids with "fanvid", not with "vid", as the latter tag is used for porn (porn being one of the biggest uses of Tumblr). Tumblr is very multimedia -- short stories like round robins spring up in reblogs, with gif sets incorporated. Tumblr gif sets may be a developing new artform, as they aren't quite video but aren't quite image posts either. Tumblr and Twitter move very fast. If you miss something, you have to hope it will come round again, because browsing archived posts and conversations is not feasible. My notes cut off halfway through a sentence about Tumblr comments on five reblogs down being still... something. Must have gotten distracted by the stream of porn, cat pictures, and Vin Diesel Mona Lisas Talitha was so generous as to provide as a background display for the panel.
Those were the panels. I went to very few vidshows.
Vids that stuck with me:
- several Fringe vids (in instrumental vidshow, CVV, and premieres)
- I Wanna Dance by Jarrow to Glee in CVV
- Evil Love Shack of Darkness by SE to Evil Dead trilogy in CVV
- Let Me Put My Love Into You by sweetestdrain to Bitch Slap in Premieres
- Masters of War (Pegasus Rising Remix) by bironic to Stargate: Atlantis in Premieres
- Everything Is Wrong by Laura Shapiro to Community in Premieres
- It's All Coming Back to Me Now by Greensilver to Captain America comics in Karaoke
In summation: had a great time at the con. Now I have written this up, posted it, and I can get on with my journal.
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