update

[lierdumoa]

So I came down with something day before yesterday. I'm sure drinking strong coffee and pulling an all-nighter working on the Gia vid didn't help. I got really nauseous in the shower (but thankfully didn't throw up), then after running up and down five flights of stairs to get to the laundry room and back, my heartrate sped way up (I'm sure the strong coffee wasn't helping there) and I ended up lying next to the open window in my room trying to cool off so I wouldn't pass out. Luckily it was, like, 53* F outside so the cooling off didn't take long.



I got 37 seconds done. Seven or eight hours spent at the computer between 1:00 and 10:00am. I figured out how to deal with the mixed source. There's a combination of regular footage, regular footage that I upped the brightness/contrast on, regular footage that I upped the b/c on and color tweaked to look slightly fuchsia, and black and white footage. The transitional periods in the song are marked by either fade-to-white's or fade-to-fuchsia's. Beyond the color tweaking, there really aren't any effects except the occasional faux camera flash. There's a ton of jump-cutting, no crossfades of any kind, and the average clip is about half a second long.

I keep feeling like I'm cutting too fast. My cuts seem shorter than they are because I'm used to editing at 29.976 fps, not 24fps.

It doesn't really look like any vid I've seen before, and I'm having a hard time judging whether that's good or not. I guess I'm more creative when sleep deprived. Anyway, the people at the vidparty yesterday seemed to like it, so I'm not too worried.

It wouldn't play in the DVD player (the DVD player we had played most AVI's, apparently -- just not the particular encode I used), so we had to play it on the computer monitor. I wanted to see what the colors looked like on tv because I only have my computer monitor when I'm vidding and it's not the best judge. Did I mention the fuchsia?



I'm really excited for VividCon now that I've previewed a few of the Premiere vids. Not that I wasn't already excited before. Eeeee! It's gonna be so good! Eeeeeeeee!



I got some vitamins from permetaform after we got back from the vidparty, then slept ten hours. My nose was stuffy when I woke up, but it's pretty clear now. I think I'm going to spend the day just drinking lots of water/caffeine-free tea and relaxing. And maybe vid a little. Or poke at my fic WIP's.

Comments

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

When I was nearly done with my seventh vid I met absolut3destiny who was nice enough to walk me through the harder parts of that giant guide he and ErMaC wrote on AMV.org.

I vid at 24 fps now when I'm working with film source because that way Premiere doesn't have to convert the framerate. I generally prefer Premiere not do anything to my source that I don't specifically tell it to do.

The main difference between the two is that I time things two frames before the beat on 24 fps and three before on 29.976 (the eye is slower than the ear, so it needs to be slightly behind to look right). I do most of my timing by ear anyway, rather than visually off the waveform, so it's not a big change.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

And they are pretty and fun, but for sufficiently across-the-spectrum syncopated songs I've discovered it is far less frustrating and much quicker just to use my ear. :-p

When I was working on my TF&TF vid the waveform was pretty much completely useless. I think I posted a picture at one point. It basically looked like one long sausage of sound no matter how far you zoomed in.

With TITG it was much easier to rely on the waveform. Though, of course, I still doublechecked the timing by ear to make sure.

If you're using tv footage, it's already 29.976 fps, so there's no conversion involved.

I think with any editing program, if the source is at a different framerate then what you're editing at, the program will automatically convert it. Not anything particularly funky -- it doesn't change the speed or anything, just interpolates. For example, mathematically frame 2 of a piece of 24 fps footage is equivalent to frame 2.6 of a piece of 29.8 fps footage. If you convert from 24 to the 29.8, the frame 2 on the converted footage is going to look like a blend of the first two frames of the originaly footage with an opacity ratio of 1:0.6 (or at least, that's what it looks like is happening). It can be slightly annoying when you find out what was supposed to look like a hard cut on the original footage now looks like a weird two frame long crossfade in your editor.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Also a note -- most of my technobabble is completely out of my own head based on my own brand of logic, therefore it's entirely possible I'm just pulling shit out of my ass.

And my math is probably off because I did it in my head.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

The vid is *awesome* and I *adore* it and I can't wait to find out what happens next. The song makes me happy beyond measure: look, a real woman, not a construct, singing about being a construct...it's all so yummy and feminist and meta and I have no ability to be coherent about it right now. :p

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I love that description. I think it fits Gia perfectly. She was this incredible personality and the media basically did what it could to turn her personality into a construct and then market the construct. She was also really fucked up, and often immature (which would be expected at her age) as is the narrator of the song.

It's a bit sad to think that the way tv and movies are today, the simple act of doing an in-depth character study of a well rounded female character could be construed as feminist. People aren't used to having female characters with layers and are hard pressed to recognize them when they see them. But then, that's what your panel is for! To show that there are great women on tv who deserve great vids, just like the men.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're not wrong about that. It was actually quite difficult to find a dozen or so character study vids about women that did not put a relationship with a man front and center. While part of this is still to do with the roles for women on television and in films, I'm also struck by how many opportunities there are that people *don't* take -- how many great female character studies there *could* be, if fans wanted to make them.

OTOH, a huge percentage of fandom is 'ship-oriented anyway. Character studies of men aren't that common, either.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Point.

I find usually when I'm doing a character study vid the relationship is still a huge part of it because often it seems the shows/movies themselves are ship oriented and you learn so much about a character through their romantic relationships, moreso than their other relationships.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

It's true, especially on the more mainstream shows/movies. There's a firm belief in Hollywood that every story has to have a romance.

I often find the other relationships much more interesting: friendships, families, co-workers, and so on. My favorite shows tend to emphasize created families (Sports Night and West Wing, Buffy, Farscape, Firefly), which is the best thing evar. But, rarely vidded.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

ugh, whatever you had, I have too. at least this explains why I felt so weak on Sunday. pats poor tummy.