elipie
Pub Enthusiast
Posts: 115
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Post by elipie on Nov 29, 2011 17:39:38 GMT -5
I used to do a lot of ballet as a kid and then modern dance a few years ago and I wonder, now that you've mentioned it, if that may be the reason why I'm, a lot like you, more interested in the aesthetics and "choreographing" of a vid rather than its narrative. I've never looked at it that way but I guess it makes sense. Those moments in fanvids where the movment on the clip seems to mirror the movements in the song--I can get completely giddy over that. I never realized I vidded this way, but I totally do. I used to take tap, jazz, and hip-hop (anyone who's met me IRL, please feel free to laugh at me), and I think that's definitely had an influence on the way I cut. I also used to drum, and I wonder if that's why I have a tendency to cut on the softer beat, where it's sort of unexpected, and, IMO, where it can sometimes be more interesting. I totally get what you're saying with the movement mirroring the movements in the song. I think I may have actually overdone it a little in my Modern Family festivid from last year, where I used a few clips of Cam actually dancing to the beat of the song. |
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Post by nataliemich on Nov 29, 2011 19:11:17 GMT -5
I can definitely identify with the dance thing. I took ballet, jazz, tap, and hip-hop over the course of about ten years, and it has absolutely influenced the way I view vids. I'm having to learn that moments when the music and movement don't match up can actually be very effective, too.
In terms of being new to vidding and the community - I was really excited when I found about this forum, because it feels like a much easier place to get involved and learn without first trying to "prove" myself. I started wanting to make vids a year or two ago, but I didn't want to try to join the community until I had actually made a vid (I never really got that this was necessary from lurking around the community, it's just my own need to feel like I'm contributing if I'm going to take part at all) - and then I didn't have any easy way of learning how to vid without talking to other vidders. I eventually found some of the old vidding meta and how-to's that people talked about earlier in this thread, but even that is a little isolating - mostly because it's so old, and I thought maybe I would be horribly behind, like the lack of meta and how-to was a reflection of the lack of new vidders.
So for me, I think the problem was more the overwhelming challenge of learning the tech. I did get the idea that the community as a whole trended towards vids that subverted the narrative or made some meta argument, as other people have said, but (English lit major that I am) that always made me more eager to get involved, not less.
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Post by icepixie on Nov 29, 2011 21:18:33 GMT -5
Which kind of leads to an interesting question of where the onus of community representation lies or where it should lie - I don't believe there's any obligation on the people who don't speak up to do so if they don't want to; on the other hand, it does seem like it's useful to newcomers know that very different individual opinions exist within an apparently monolithic approach. I'm not sure where I'm going with this... clearly there's a bit of a communication disconnect, but it's hard to pinpoint where the responsibility lies to make it more accessible. Good question. I definitely don't think people who don't want to speak up should force themselves to voice opinions for ~the good of the community~ or anything like that. And with the spread-out nature of LJ, or even YouTube and the like, I think it's difficult for any group to decide, "We want to represent ourselves as x," because outsiders are necessarily only going to see what their friends write about or link to, or what Google serves up, unless they make a decision to dig deeper. And a group that's spread out like fandom or any subgroup within fandom can't control how newbies come to them and what they see first, you know? But I think a forum like this makes it much easier to distinguish the multiple POVs in the vidding community at large (or at least of the individuals who post here), simply because it's collected, and not scattered across a dozen different journals that have sometimes tenuous links to each other. |
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Post by winterjasmine on Dec 1, 2011 17:46:22 GMT -5
icepixie! This is a little scary. Are you inside my head? 'Cos I could have written pretty much that exact post  1) The lurker is strong in me too  2) Never been to a con either 3) Yes! This! I'm not sure whether it's a function of being new to vidding but I definitely consider myself a fan of the show first, and vidding happens more like writing fic, as an offshoot of the fannishness over the show, rather than as a primary thing. Okay, that probably makes no sense...  4) Narrative is pretty important to me, because I find that easier than the musicality bit. Getting the cuts in the right place makes my head hurt more than figuring the story out, probably because I write too, so narrative is something I know a little more about 5) I vid on a Mac too! And use iMovie! Hurrah! ;D I was going to move up to FCE, but then Apple pulled it, and now I can only find used copies on Ebay and I'm not sure they will work. Plus, iMovie works, and my little brain can't take many more tech problems! Which version do you use? I use HD. Oh, and welcome aboard! Jaz
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elipie
Pub Enthusiast
Posts: 115
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Post by elipie on Dec 1, 2011 18:00:21 GMT -5
I use iMovie HD as well! I am planning on moving to FCE soon once I can get my paws on a copy. I think Amazon has both new and used versions, so that's where I'm going to get mine from. Now my problem is I have like 15 WIPs in iMovie, so if I wanted to start vidding in FCE, I'd kind of have to work in both programs at the same time, which might be a little confusing for me. I think there are definitely pros and cons to both, but what I really want out of FCE is those bins. The amount of clips I'm using in one of my WIPs is slowing iMovie down and making it crash, so I think being able to organize them into bins will help with both organization and the program not crashing.
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Post by icepixie on Dec 1, 2011 19:14:02 GMT -5
Yay, iMovie vidders to commiserate with! I use '09. I just learned that Final Cut Express is a thing, and moreover a thing I could possibly afford someday, so I'm definitely going to look into that (thanks for the Amazon suggestion, elipie). I took a video art class in college about ten years ago where we used Final Cut Pro...2, I think? Maybe 3. Anyway, from what I remember, once you got past the learning curve it was so much easier to deal with than iMovie, especially if you have a big clip library you want to keep organized. I long for a way to sort my clips that isn't just by date. I import all the clips from a particular episode or movie as separate events, and if I could just sort them alphabetically that would be such a big help now that I have 100+ events over in that little sidebar I have to scroll through every time I want to find something I imported months ago.
I also long to not have to vid linearly, or quasi-linearly, as it may be. I can usually get the first thirty seconds done before I want to skip to the end or something, and while my workaround of thirty seconds of black screen I recorded with Quicktime inserted over and over until I get to the point of the song I want to play with works, it's a pain. And then once I've timed everything nicely at minute 2:45 or whatever, then I have to insert footage very carefully. I wind up doing a lot of math. "Okay, this piece of blank footage was 12.7 seconds, so these two clips have to add up to that..." I have to keep a notebook by my computer just for my figures. Gets old.
Jaz, that makes sense to me. Fun as it is, vidding is not the primary way I engage with a canon. It's more this thing I do when a song suggests an idea to me. The process is generally like, "Hey, this song is great. *listens to it 80 times* You know, the lyrics suggest this character to me. And hey, that guitar riff would look great with the wacky hijinks of [show] set to it. *off to Excel to brainstorm and storyboard*" I don't think I've ever started with an idea and then tried to find music for it. When I get an idea first, I've always channeled that to fic-writing.
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atharriordan89
New to the Pub
There is no Fate, But what we make...
Posts: 9
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Post by atharriordan89 on Dec 1, 2011 19:28:55 GMT -5
Although I'm not entirely newbie at vidding, I never felt that I'm a part of any kind of vidding community. I always was lonely as a vidder... Hopefully this place can be a friendly evironment for oldies and newbies as well. And for middleagedbies, too. I had the same feelings as Valika when I first started vidding, in terms of being a lone vidder as I found it hard to interact with established vidders etc. that, and, like Littleheaven mentioned earlier on, Vidding can be an isolating hobby if you don't know anyone personally or locally who shares the hobby. But I do find the idea of pairing people an interesting idea. When I first looked into attempting videos, I had no idea where to begin - I had the program and I had the music but I had no way of getting clips etc. It took me a long time to find a way to get clips and make videos without using other people's clips to practice with, but after I became familiar with ripping programs and places to track down clips I was able to explore editing. I'm not tech savy and find WMM has always been my friend when I vid, so I stick with what I know in terms of my basic editing. I try new techniques on Adobe, but only once I've finished the basic outline of the video in Movie Maker. icepixie1) The lurker is strong in me too 2) Never been to a con either 3) Yes! This! I'm not sure whether it's a function of being new to vidding but I definitely consider myself a fan of the show first, and vidding happens more like writing fic, as an offshoot of the fannishness over the show, rather than as a primary thing. Okay, that probably makes no sense... 4) Narrative is pretty important to me, because I find that easier than the musicality bit. Getting the cuts in the right place makes my head hurt more than figuring the story out, probably because I write too, so narrative is something I know a little more about Like winterjasmine, I consider myself being a fan of the shows I vid for initially before I move onto vidding for them. *Although, at the same time, I only began watching LotS because i'd watched a video by kjcharmed that captivated me called 'A Hero Comes Home' kjcharmed.livejournal.com/41982.html * In terms of vidding, I try and find a narrative that correlates between both clips and music. 8/10 times i admit, it doesn't go to plan, but when it does, it's a great feeling. Um, in terms of matching music and clips - I do try and match cuts with clip changes whenever possible, but I don't commit to matching cuts all the time if I feel the video would be better without it In terms of Vidding forums, this would be my first one - I'm on LJ but I mainly interact in the Fanfiction communities and so haven't really joined any vidding forums before- so i'm trying to interact as much as I can here to break a habit of becoming a lurker  |
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Post by valika on Dec 2, 2011 5:52:19 GMT -5
That's me exactly.  Just add the problem of using a foreign language as the medium of interaction. But I keep trying... |
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Post by astarte on Dec 2, 2011 13:53:09 GMT -5
Native speakers are very forgiving or at least that is what I tell myself, when I fumble hopelessly through a sentence. I sometimes have a hard time articulate what I mean especially with interpretations. But the funny thing with vidding is that it bounces back, when I talk about it in German and have to use all these technical terms in English.
What icepixie said about vidding being an extension of fanish love like writing, is exactly how I feel about it. I did start out with fanfics, first translating them to German and then writing for TXF and a year later Angel and Buffy. I don't write for most fandoms I vid nowadays, because I think vidding for me covers something creatively that is closer to canon. The visual aspect of telling a story or manipulating the images into my take on characters is the aspect I enjoy most about vidding. I love to argue my interpretation of characters in vids, what I see as important and to highlight certain traits.
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Post by obsessive24 on Dec 2, 2011 14:20:15 GMT -5
I used to write fic when I didn't know one could vid. But my favourite part of writing had always been imagining scenes set to certain songs. I had fannish love, but it feels like I channel it more fully through vidding than through writing. Words are so hard.
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Post by franzeska on Dec 2, 2011 14:38:43 GMT -5
while my workaround of thirty seconds of black screen I recorded with Quicktime inserted over and over until I get to the point of the song I want to play with works, it's a pain. And then once I've timed everything nicely at minute 2:45 or whatever, then I have to insert footage very carefully. I wind up doing a lot of math. "Okay, this piece of blank footage was 12.7 seconds, so these two clips have to add up to that..." I have to keep a notebook by my computer just for my figures. Doesn't iMovie have markers of some kind? I used to use some function like that before I switched to FCE. (It hasn't been that long, but of course I've forgotten already.) As soon as I liked where my clip was, I would add whatever the bookmark/marker things are on either end. Even with a gazillion-clip sequence, it will only match the markers one way because clips are never quite the same length. Any time I messed things up while editing, I would snap the end of the vid back to its set of markers. |
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elipie
Pub Enthusiast
Posts: 115
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Post by elipie on Dec 2, 2011 14:41:17 GMT -5
while my workaround of thirty seconds of black screen I recorded with Quicktime inserted over and over until I get to the point of the song I want to play with works, it's a pain. And then once I've timed everything nicely at minute 2:45 or whatever, then I have to insert footage very carefully. I wind up doing a lot of math. "Okay, this piece of blank footage was 12.7 seconds, so these two clips have to add up to that..." I have to keep a notebook by my computer just for my figures. Doesn't iMovie have markers of some kind? I used to use some function like that before I switched to FCE. (It hasn't been that long, but of course I've forgotten already.) As soon as I liked where my clip was, I would add whatever the bookmark/marker things are on either end. Even with a gazillion-clip sequence, it will only match the markers one way because clips are never quite the same length. Any time I messed things up while editing, I would snap the end of the vid back to its set of markers. That's exactly what I do. It's still a pretty big pain in the butt to fix, especially if you have multiple sequences of clips near the end of the vid, but it's much better than just guessing where you originally laid things out. |
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Post by icepixie on Dec 2, 2011 15:23:41 GMT -5
Doesn't iMovie have markers of some kind? It does have some kind of markers (comment markers? chapter markers? are those what you and elipie are referring to?), but I don't think they sticky tape a clip to a certain point in the music. Or are you talking about something else? ETA: FYI, I also asked this in the Vidding for Dummies thread, where it probably fits better. (It's been a decade since I posted on forums; I'm used to topic drift in comments on LJ!) |
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Post by icepixie on Dec 2, 2011 15:43:23 GMT -5
Native speakers are very forgiving or at least that is what I tell myself, when I fumble hopelessly through a sentence. As mostly-monoglot English speaker (I took Spanish all through high school, but I am verrrrry rusty), I'm pretty much constantly in awe of people whose native language isn't English but who participate in English fandom. I don't think I could even read a forum in Spanish, much less post to it or God forbid write fic! Y'all are amazing. "Closer to canon" is kind of how I feel about vidding. I often vid and write fic for the same fandoms, but they fill different roles in my fannish experience. Fic is for when I want more of a canon--what happened in that scene they didn't show us, what happens between these episodes, what happens after the show's over--or when I want something the canon doesn't give me, like if a ship I shipped sunk on the show. Vidding is more a celebration of what canon gives us, so my vids are more like, "This character goes through these challenges, but rises above them because of her bravery," or whatever. For one of my Astaire/Rogers vids, I basically just retold the story of several of their films in four minutes (it helps that their films all had very similar plots...), attempting to illustrate their characters' emotional journey largely through their dancing. I think the nearest textual equivalent of vidding, for me, is essay-writing. Vids are kind of a...more creative explication of canon, maybe? I think people who make vids that subvert or otherwise don't fall in line with canon are just amazing, because I fail utterly at that. I tried it once, with a vid about Talia's alternate personality on Babylon 5, since we only saw that for about five minutes at the end of one episode. It kind of works, since you can argue that the alternate personality was controlling most or all of real!Talia's actions for two seasons, but it's still my least-favorite vid of mine because I can't look at the clips without remembering the original context of the scenes they're from, and it just kind of destroys the vid for me. |
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Post by astarte on Dec 3, 2011 13:53:48 GMT -5
Yeah, for my fics canon is normally a jump-off point with a very precise idea were the characters are emotionally at that time. I started out writing a lot of missing scenes/post-eps, then moving on to unconventional pairings and later on plot driven/apocalypse fics. Things that could have happened and the implications that would have created for other characters. Like killing the leading man or if a character jumped back ten years in time. What I love about reading/writing fanfics is how they can expand canon in amazing ways and tell these hidden epic tales that are possible in these worlds. Highlight minor characters or sometimes just sex hot like burning, because I love my porn best in word form. I think the nearest textual equivalent of vidding, for me, is essay-writing. Vids are kind of a...more creative explication of canon, maybe? I did shift my approach to vidding a bit this year, essentially mapping out the story I want to tell in my head and then searching for a song. It's slightly backwards to how I did this in the past, often having a vague idea or the strong urge to vid a character. Searching for a song that covers that mood and then really working out, how to vid this music piece and making it fit for a character. I mean it sounds almost the same, written down, but I have a so much clearer vision of the vid now, before I even have a song. I really love some of the results, because I feel that I own the narrative more. It's less a random result of the music and more my true perception of a show/arc. Because I reject songs that could work, if they don't fit a hundred percent with what I have in mind. In that sense they are now even more like a essay, I know exactly what points I want to touch on and the emotional shifts I want to work into the vid. I have to say that constructed reality or Alternate Universe vids are so much fun. I haven't done a true AU one in a long time, but what I really loved about them is the freedom to use emotions and create scenes out of thin air. It feels a lot more like fic writing. Plus it did teach me to rely on the actors more. What they add emotionally to the medium and how to latch onto moods. Again I think the satisfaction with the result depends on the story you wanted to tell. If it's something that itched under your skin to 'tell' in a vid. My most successful AU was one for two characters that shared around five minutes of air time and what made it work for most people, was the way it connected these two characters in ways the audience didn't expect. Another one I still like was just a violent slash AU for two characters, that was closer to a lot of fanon stories at that time. I have to say the Astaire/Rogers vid was absolutely amazing, the movement and how you build up and tied the plots was remarkable and so, so pretty. Such a keeper. And I felt the Babylon5 did tell a cohesive story without knowing anything about the show. |
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Just add the problem of using a foreign language as the medium of interaction. But I keep trying...
