Year in Fandom: 2010

[thuviaptarth]

Fiction
None.

Vids
January
Etheric Messages (Fringe)
Names (The Vampire Diaries)

February
No Skin (The Inside)

March
Low Red Moon remaster (Supernatural)

August
Light of Day (Caprica)

That vid meme

My favorite video this year (of my own):
"Etheric Messages." I have rewatched it too much to like it as much as I used to, but there's still very little I'd change.

My least favourite video this year:
The "Low Red Moon" remaster was really frustrating: the downloads and the DVD rips did not seem to have the same number of frames in crucial places, I was too lazy to re-do the ending sequence properly, I finally realized how messed up the character focus was but didn't care enough to re-do it properly, and also, remastering is really boring.

Picking a remaster feels like cheating, but honestly, I'm not that unhappy with any of the vids I completed this year. I guess I could go with "Names," because it was so much prettier in my head, or "Light of Day," because it had so much less emotional impact than I wanted.

Most successful video:
"Etheric Messages," in terms of both achievement and audience -- I think it surpassed "Low Red Moon" as my most downloaded vid, and it was the first vid where I really got how to vid.

Video most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
"No Skin," maybe? I actually started it before "Etheric Messages" and had most of the beginning and the ending done in 2009, before I took a break to do Festivids, so it's the first started (if not the first completed) of the vids where I felt like I got visual flow and clarity of meaning. But it's a tiny fandom, and Festivids gave me an inflated expectation of feedback for that, especially since, in retrospect, Fringe and Vampire Diaries were rarely vidded but not unpopular.

Most fun video:
... I don't think I'm optimized for fun.

The ending of "No Skin" makes me happy in a grim sort of way?

Video with single sexiest moment:
I think Olivia drawing her finger down the map is incredibly sexy, but I suspect it's a minority opinion. Or the city/body overlays or the chains sequence in "No Skin," but, again, I'm not sure how many viewers are kinked that way.

Biggest vid fail:
Ahahaha. That goddamn Supernatural vid that still isn't done yet "Light of Day" is both colder and more opaque than I originally thought it would be, and not quite dense enough in the middle for me to feel quite satisfied with it not making sense to anyone else.

In more general terms, I was plugging away at vids through June or July and then just ... kind of lost impetus. If I'd been more focused, and if I hadn't had an external hard drive failure, I probably could have finished a couple of more vids in progress.

Hardest video to make:
They all seem relatively easy compared to my first vid, honestly. Probably "No Skin" -- I did a lot of After Effects work for it, and also basically re-structured the entire song because it was (a) very long and (b) not shaped the way I needed it to be. But it doesn't feel that hard in retrospect, because all that took was plugging away at the tech stuff; story-telling and clip selection went pretty smoothly.

Most unintentionally telling video: Most surprising vidding-related development:
I have always hated that "most unintentionally telling" thing, so I am cutting it.

All the vids about the lasting effects of childhood trauma! (Admittedly, this would have been more evident to the outside world if I'd finished the Supernatural vid.)

I made something that wasn't a character study!

I vidded Caprica! (What, in 2009 I never expected to watch it.)

Oh wait, I did think of something unintentionally telling: the endings of "No Skin" and "Light of Day" are probably my id in vidding format. "Etheric Messages," too. Everything should be about little girls and the end of the world, or little girls ending the world.

Things I learned

• Audio editing! I still feel like this is the hardest part of vidding, even harder than pre-clipping, but I rebuilt a song! <--continues feel ridiculously chuffed about this
  
• To do a better job at making things flow
  
• Fun with compositing!
  
• 
  hazelk gave me an amazing beta on "Light of Day" that gave me a lot to think about in terms of light, color, and movement
  
• "Etheric Messages" isn't nearly as a comprehensible to an audience without context as I thought it was
  
• It makes me really happy when people say my vid made them start watching a show
  
• Especially when that show is Fringe
  

How I did on my 2010 goals

1. Give more feedback on things I watch or read.
   Hahaha. Um. I did this for about six weeks, and then I stopped. I owe something like a hundred comments on VVC vids, Doctor Who vids, and Saiunkoku and Twelve Kingdoms stories.
   
   
2. Write that Sweet Charity story that was due in 2007.
   I wrote a first draft! ... and then I couldn't figure out how to fix it.
   
   
3. Keep trekking through the After Effects books.
   This lasted about ... six months, which means it's been six months since I opened them.
   
   
4. I said this last year, but I keep getting sidetracked: Learn more about color.
   Eh, sort of. Needs more work.
   
   
5. Improve timing.
   Okay.
   
   
6. Improve vid structure.
   Some improvement, needs more work.
   
   
7. Remaster "Low Red Moon."
   Done!
   
   
8. Six vids in 2010, or five vids and two to three vidlets.
   Ahahaha. No. Two vids, two vidlets, one remaster. And one of the vids was mostly done in 2009.
   
   
9. Do an ambitious vid.
   Done!

2011 goals

1. Finish auction/challenge obligations. On time where this is still possible.
   
2. Do not take on new auctions/challenges.
   
3. Give more feedback.
   
4. Finish the Supernatural vid.
   
5. Continue work on color, vid structure, getting comfortable with After Effects.
   
6. Stop stressing out about vidding too slowly.
   

I would kind of like to do some of the BtVS or SCC ideas I have in queue, but that depends on whether I have the time to rewatch. It would also be nice to do the two Fringe ideas so I can stop avoiding vids that look like they might be similar. But it all depends on how long everything else takes. (Also, it will not be a huge surprise if I end up making a Saiunkoku vid instead.)

Stealing this from kiki_miserychic:
If there is any question you would like to ask me about any one of my vids, then go ahead! What I meant by a particular clip or sequence, why I chose to highlight that characterization, why I chose that song, what crack I was taking and where you can get some...anything. Anything you might like to know about how I made a vid, I shall do my best to answer.

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