NEW VID - Paul McCartney
I should've come up with a clever (or at least intuitive) title for this one, but I didn't, so feel free to call it what la_cspan does: OMG BOUNCY GAYS.
This was my premiering vid for Club Vivid at VVC. I love it to itty bitty bits, and it's easily the vid I'm most confident about. I don't want to be friends with anyone who doesn't like this vid. It'll be a nice litmus test going forward, methinks.
"Paul McCartney"
Fandom: Will & Grace
Music: Scissor Sisters
Summary: It's the music that connects me to you.
Download: [here] (44MB, xvid)
Special thanks to my cheerleaders la_cspan, notpiecebypiece, and laurashapiro, and to the cast of Will & Grace for being so animatedly gay.
password: gay
You know, the fun part about this vid is that I had no game plan. I barely had a concept. It consisted of "Will & Grace is the only show gay enough for this song." The song itself is one that I love dearly, and it was one of the first ideas that jumped out at me when submissions for Club Vivid opened. I can't think of any other danceable song I'd rather vid more, and I couldn't think of any other show that I could vid it with. This was also the first bit of audio editing I ever did for a vid (cutting 20 seconds toward the end). After five BSG vids, it was a breath of fresh air to step into a new fandom. My first vid without Starbuck, ahhh! This vid completely relies on the fact that almost everyone knows the basics about Will & Grace even though very few people are really fannish about it. Hopefully a sitcom vid will be fresh to people.
I had no idea for a narrative, no intent to focus on any particular characters (as the show is such a strong foursome already), and absolutely no memory of the source. Never before have I gone into a vid without a single clip placed in my head. This is, of course, because I didn't remember any specifics from the source, but I'd seen the first few seasons two or three times, and I was confident that there was enough physical comedy in it to pull it off. In a way, it was a huge leap of faith for me. I usually cling to my storyboards as if they're my children. Going in blind was scary in a way, but it was also that much more rewarding when the vid worked itself out.
As I rewatched the source, I was pleased as punch to see that I had even more great clips to work with than I'd ever dreamed. I own seasons 1-4 but only ending up using 1 and 2 (and later, the first four episodes of S3), which were more than enough. The seasons were encoded differently, though, which proved to make things a bit interesting for me tech-wise. Season 2 was a straight interlaced code, but season 1 was a nasty hybrid with no clear lean in either direction. Considering I needed the final output to stay in 29.97fps for the convention, I did my best to IVTC the interlacing with a script that would keep the framerate constant. It removed the interlacing but left a lot of fuzzy movement trails in the frames. Still, better than nothing. I played around with it for hours and couldn't get anything better. I cut my losses and moved forward. It wasn't until later that I found out I could've submitted a 23.976 (progressive) vid after all, but it was too late. Sadly, this vid ain't getting any prettier. Lesson learned.
This vid never was a brain-buster for me, simply a way to have fun, but it still presented its challenges. Piecing this together proved to be a new kind of puzzle for me. I randomly stumbled upon a great opening clip early on and soon after found what I'd use to end the vid, but the middle was a complete mystery. Here I had 3:30 of blank timeline and over 200 bite-size pieces that I could arrange in pretty much any order possible with (what felt like would yield) a moderately similar result. So what was the "right" order, then? I had no fucking idea.
When I'm done clipping source, I always go back and rewatch all the clips I've just made. This is not only for the gratifying sense of accomplishment, but also to give me a sense of what I really have onhand to work with. I also use this opportunity to make more notes in my spreadsheet for matching clips to lyrics or sections. I do this when I'm first deciding what clips to rip in the first place, but sometimes things don't click with me the first time around for whatever reason. Since I wasn't telling any kind of story with this vid and I had no clear idea of what kind of clips should go in particular sections of the song, I decided to start by grouping similar clips together (fainting, victorious arm pumps, hugs and kisses, gasping in shock, dances, etc) and see if I could make any sense out of it. Actually, the fact that I had groups of clips in the first place was the neatest part of my prep work for this vid. When I was rewatching the episodes, I grabbed interesting motiony bits with absolutely no idea that they would be paralleled later (by other characters or themselves). It was such a delightful surprise to end up with something like twenty different clumps of paralleled motion. This, all tracked in my spreadsheet, was by far the most helpful thing I did for myself. Now I had actual sections to block together rather than a smattering of tiny, random bits. Also, the clips were far more visually interesting as a cluster than individually; a nice bonus!
I never wrote out any kind of storyboard, nor did I make any notes directly attached to the lyrics (which was a first, for me, as I'm usually very lyrics driven). What ended up being the very basic format of the vid evolved completely without any guidance from me. And that was:
-slapstick "oops" clips in the beginning, those with sharp action on beats
-hugging/kissing/love shots go nearer the end, like the mistakes are healing into forgiveness
The end. Yeah, that's pretty much all this vid is.
I'm actually quite pleased that there's an emotional shift at all, since my original vision (or lack thereof) of the vid was very monotone (that tone being: OMG BOUNCY GAYS). I feel like it ends with a sort of "aww!" feeling when you had been laughing in the beginning, and that makes me feel like I not only reached my goal, but I surpassed it. But then, it's not hard to reach your goals when they're two inches off the ground.
While I didn't have much of an emotional gameplan in place, I did have a few little rules for myself. I never wrote these out until now, so this is a bit of a hindsight list.
+ for god's sake, vid on the beat. It's a dance vid that highlights comedic motion. Don't blow it.
+ try to alternate shots so we don't see the same character twice in a row. This wasn't always possible, but I made a conscious effort to minimize it. 50% of the physical comedy in the show is Jack, 40% is Grace, 7% is Karen, and 3% is Will. It's kind of hard to avoid making it a Jack & Grace vid, but I did try. As I was making my final clip choices (trying to pick two from a list of about twelve options), literally all my options were Jack.
+ use parallels whenever possible. I think this, more than anything else I did, gave the vid substance and kept it from being just a random assortment of clips set to music. Anything to show you people that I actually, you know, put EFFORT into this.
+ don't sweat context, since nobody knows it anyway (including me, ha!)
+ AVOID WILL'S MULLET (from the pilot). I begrudgingly used it ONCE because I HAD to, but I swear on all that is good and holy that I desperately pleaded with the show to give me another running hug. Not surprisingly, the show told me to fuck off and respect its roots. Something about growing pains, I wasn't really listening. I was too distracted by the MULLET OF D00M.
+ keep the lyrics in the back of my mind without stressing over them too much. Because seriously, I can't understand most of what the poor man says--even after 100 listenings--much less expect you, the casual viewer, to comprehend and immediately withdraw contextual value from my vid. I have high expectations of you as people, really I do, but I do draw the line somewhere. And consequently, vidding without stressing about lyrics was intoxicatingly liberating. I think there are maybe five places where I went literal just because I could.
+ pay attention to motion. This probably sounds ridiculously obvious considering it's a vid ABOUT MOTION, but it doesn't go without saying. I couldn't just take moments from the episode that made me laugh; I had to think them through. Does this clip work muted and out of context? Will the motion work with the tempo and beats of the song? Is there a more interesting version of this movement elsewhere (by the same person or someone else)? Is there something in the clip that sets it too far apart from the rest (weird background, hair, clothing, lighting, etc)? Is there too much talky-face that renders the clip ineffective? Shit like that. I was so depressed to find that the scene where Jack teaches Grace the choreography to "Oops, I Did It Again" was way too slow and didn't speed up well. DAMNIT.
Edit (9/2/08): To read notes on the remastering process for this vid, go here.
Recs and feedback are always appreciated!
This was my premiering vid for Club Vivid at VVC. I love it to itty bitty bits, and it's easily the vid I'm most confident about. I don't want to be friends with anyone who doesn't like this vid. It'll be a nice litmus test going forward, methinks.
"Paul McCartney"
Fandom: Will & Grace
Music: Scissor Sisters
Summary: It's the music that connects me to you.
Download: [here] (44MB, xvid)
Special thanks to my cheerleaders la_cspan, notpiecebypiece, and laurashapiro, and to the cast of Will & Grace for being so animatedly gay.
password: gay
You know, the fun part about this vid is that I had no game plan. I barely had a concept. It consisted of "Will & Grace is the only show gay enough for this song." The song itself is one that I love dearly, and it was one of the first ideas that jumped out at me when submissions for Club Vivid opened. I can't think of any other danceable song I'd rather vid more, and I couldn't think of any other show that I could vid it with. This was also the first bit of audio editing I ever did for a vid (cutting 20 seconds toward the end). After five BSG vids, it was a breath of fresh air to step into a new fandom. My first vid without Starbuck, ahhh! This vid completely relies on the fact that almost everyone knows the basics about Will & Grace even though very few people are really fannish about it. Hopefully a sitcom vid will be fresh to people.
I had no idea for a narrative, no intent to focus on any particular characters (as the show is such a strong foursome already), and absolutely no memory of the source. Never before have I gone into a vid without a single clip placed in my head. This is, of course, because I didn't remember any specifics from the source, but I'd seen the first few seasons two or three times, and I was confident that there was enough physical comedy in it to pull it off. In a way, it was a huge leap of faith for me. I usually cling to my storyboards as if they're my children. Going in blind was scary in a way, but it was also that much more rewarding when the vid worked itself out.
As I rewatched the source, I was pleased as punch to see that I had even more great clips to work with than I'd ever dreamed. I own seasons 1-4 but only ending up using 1 and 2 (and later, the first four episodes of S3), which were more than enough. The seasons were encoded differently, though, which proved to make things a bit interesting for me tech-wise. Season 2 was a straight interlaced code, but season 1 was a nasty hybrid with no clear lean in either direction. Considering I needed the final output to stay in 29.97fps for the convention, I did my best to IVTC the interlacing with a script that would keep the framerate constant. It removed the interlacing but left a lot of fuzzy movement trails in the frames. Still, better than nothing. I played around with it for hours and couldn't get anything better. I cut my losses and moved forward. It wasn't until later that I found out I could've submitted a 23.976 (progressive) vid after all, but it was too late. Sadly, this vid ain't getting any prettier. Lesson learned.
This vid never was a brain-buster for me, simply a way to have fun, but it still presented its challenges. Piecing this together proved to be a new kind of puzzle for me. I randomly stumbled upon a great opening clip early on and soon after found what I'd use to end the vid, but the middle was a complete mystery. Here I had 3:30 of blank timeline and over 200 bite-size pieces that I could arrange in pretty much any order possible with (what felt like would yield) a moderately similar result. So what was the "right" order, then? I had no fucking idea.
When I'm done clipping source, I always go back and rewatch all the clips I've just made. This is not only for the gratifying sense of accomplishment, but also to give me a sense of what I really have onhand to work with. I also use this opportunity to make more notes in my spreadsheet for matching clips to lyrics or sections. I do this when I'm first deciding what clips to rip in the first place, but sometimes things don't click with me the first time around for whatever reason. Since I wasn't telling any kind of story with this vid and I had no clear idea of what kind of clips should go in particular sections of the song, I decided to start by grouping similar clips together (fainting, victorious arm pumps, hugs and kisses, gasping in shock, dances, etc) and see if I could make any sense out of it. Actually, the fact that I had groups of clips in the first place was the neatest part of my prep work for this vid. When I was rewatching the episodes, I grabbed interesting motiony bits with absolutely no idea that they would be paralleled later (by other characters or themselves). It was such a delightful surprise to end up with something like twenty different clumps of paralleled motion. This, all tracked in my spreadsheet, was by far the most helpful thing I did for myself. Now I had actual sections to block together rather than a smattering of tiny, random bits. Also, the clips were far more visually interesting as a cluster than individually; a nice bonus!
I never wrote out any kind of storyboard, nor did I make any notes directly attached to the lyrics (which was a first, for me, as I'm usually very lyrics driven). What ended up being the very basic format of the vid evolved completely without any guidance from me. And that was:
-slapstick "oops" clips in the beginning, those with sharp action on beats
-hugging/kissing/love shots go nearer the end, like the mistakes are healing into forgiveness
The end. Yeah, that's pretty much all this vid is.
I'm actually quite pleased that there's an emotional shift at all, since my original vision (or lack thereof) of the vid was very monotone (that tone being: OMG BOUNCY GAYS). I feel like it ends with a sort of "aww!" feeling when you had been laughing in the beginning, and that makes me feel like I not only reached my goal, but I surpassed it. But then, it's not hard to reach your goals when they're two inches off the ground.
While I didn't have much of an emotional gameplan in place, I did have a few little rules for myself. I never wrote these out until now, so this is a bit of a hindsight list.
+ for god's sake, vid on the beat. It's a dance vid that highlights comedic motion. Don't blow it.
+ try to alternate shots so we don't see the same character twice in a row. This wasn't always possible, but I made a conscious effort to minimize it. 50% of the physical comedy in the show is Jack, 40% is Grace, 7% is Karen, and 3% is Will. It's kind of hard to avoid making it a Jack & Grace vid, but I did try. As I was making my final clip choices (trying to pick two from a list of about twelve options), literally all my options were Jack.
+ use parallels whenever possible. I think this, more than anything else I did, gave the vid substance and kept it from being just a random assortment of clips set to music. Anything to show you people that I actually, you know, put EFFORT into this.
+ don't sweat context, since nobody knows it anyway (including me, ha!)
+ AVOID WILL'S MULLET (from the pilot). I begrudgingly used it ONCE because I HAD to, but I swear on all that is good and holy that I desperately pleaded with the show to give me another running hug. Not surprisingly, the show told me to fuck off and respect its roots. Something about growing pains, I wasn't really listening. I was too distracted by the MULLET OF D00M.
+ keep the lyrics in the back of my mind without stressing over them too much. Because seriously, I can't understand most of what the poor man says--even after 100 listenings--much less expect you, the casual viewer, to comprehend and immediately withdraw contextual value from my vid. I have high expectations of you as people, really I do, but I do draw the line somewhere. And consequently, vidding without stressing about lyrics was intoxicatingly liberating. I think there are maybe five places where I went literal just because I could.
+ pay attention to motion. This probably sounds ridiculously obvious considering it's a vid ABOUT MOTION, but it doesn't go without saying. I couldn't just take moments from the episode that made me laugh; I had to think them through. Does this clip work muted and out of context? Will the motion work with the tempo and beats of the song? Is there a more interesting version of this movement elsewhere (by the same person or someone else)? Is there something in the clip that sets it too far apart from the rest (weird background, hair, clothing, lighting, etc)? Is there too much talky-face that renders the clip ineffective? Shit like that. I was so depressed to find that the scene where Jack teaches Grace the choreography to "Oops, I Did It Again" was way too slow and didn't speed up well. DAMNIT.
Edit (9/2/08): To read notes on the remastering process for this vid, go here.
Recs and feedback are always appreciated!